The provision and use of information on Chinese art in London Libraries

London is a major international centre for study of and research into Chinese art. Four libraries - the British Library, the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, the library of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, and the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum - are perhaps the main providers of information on Chinese art, although information is also available from several museum libraries, from the library of Christie’s auction house, and from public and other libraries. A survey of users of information on Chinese art indicates that provision is generally satisfactory, although the degree of user satisfaction varies from one library to another. More effective networking between the key libraries would bring about significant improvements.

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Third Report on the Publication and Conservation of the Tomb of Ramesses III in the Valley of the Kings (KV 11)

The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology ◽

10.1177/03075133211060539 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 030751332110605

Author(s):

Anke Weber ◽

Willem Hovestreydt ◽

Lea Rees

Keyword(s):

British Library ◽

Important Goal ◽

Preliminary Results ◽

Conservation Project ◽

Victoria And Albert Museum ◽

Wall Decoration ◽

Archive Material

Since antiquity, the tomb of Ramesses III (KV 11) has been among the most frequently visited royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It was also one of the first to be described and documented in detail by European travellers in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. As large parts of the wall decoration of the tomb, especially in its rear, are now destroyed, the drawings, notes and squeezes of those early researchers who saw the site in its former splendour offer an invaluable resource for the reconstruction of the tomb’s unique decoration programme. The collection, revision, and publication of all relevant archive material concerning KV 11 is an important goal of The Ramesses III (KV 11) Publication and Conservation Project. The following article reports on first and preliminary results from the authors’ research in the archives of the British Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as well as the Bodleian Libraries and the Griffith Institute in Oxford, carried out in September 2019 and made possible through the Centenary Award 2019 of the Egypt Exploration Society.

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William Watson 1917–2007

Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 161, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows, VIII ◽

10.5871/bacad/9780197264577.003.0017 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

Rosemary Scott

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

British Museum ◽

African Studies ◽

Chinese Art ◽

World War ◽

University Of Cambridge ◽

Fellow Student ◽

The Arts ◽

The University

William Watson (1917–2007), a Fellow of the British Academy, was a scholar whose contribution to the field of Asian art and archaeology was both multifaceted and far-reaching. He earned a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge to read Modern and Medieval Languages (1936–1939), and it was at Cambridge that he met a fellow-student Katherine Armfield, whom he married in 1940. After World War II, Watson took up his first post in the arts in 1947, joining the staff of the British and Medieval Department of the British Museum. In 1966, he left the British Museum and moved to the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art to become its Director and take up the professorship of Chinese Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Watson travelled widely and often, and he became fascinated with the arts and language of Japan.

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Stealing Words, Transplanting Images

Archives of Asian Art ◽

10.1215/00666637-7162246 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 68 (2) ◽

pp. 191-214

Author(s):

Yu-jen Liu

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

National Culture ◽

Visual Representations ◽

Institutional Setting ◽

Chinese Art ◽

Cultural Significance ◽

Authoritative Knowledge ◽

Early Twentieth Century ◽

Art Objects ◽

Victoria And Albert Museum

Abstract This article explores how the category “Chinese art” was articulated and consolidated in the early twentieth century by focusing on Stephen Bushell's Chinese Art, the first book in English defined in terms of this category. Bushell's monograph highlights the intercultural character of the category, which was transformed in its content and cultural significance, when ostensibly the same authentic knowledge, articulated in verbal and visual representations, was moved from China to Europe and back again. The article starts by examining how Bushell's insider knowledge of Chinese art was transformed to fit the institutional setting of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It then explores how the authoritative knowledge of Chinese art communicated in Bushell's book was appropriated in China by the journal Guocui xuebao 國粹學報 (Journal of National Essence) in the context of attempts to revive national culture. Both cases involved hitherto unnoticed repetitions of text and images. By analyzing the mechanism informing these repetitions, this article reveals the entangled history behind the distinctive articulations of “Chinese art” in Britain and in China. Moreover, the analysis shows how the same elements, whether words or pictures, acquired a substantially different significance as they moved between cultures. This is exemplified by the formulation of the newly emergent classifying category Zhongguo meishupin 中國美術品 (“Chinese art objects”) in Guocui xuebao.

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