Phantom Porcelains: Zhangzhou and Yoshida Polychrome Dishes with Seal Design

Zhangzhou ceramics, coarsely potted with thick glaze and sandy feet, were mass-produced in southern Fujian during the late Ming and early Qing periods. The rise of the Zhangzhou kiln complex was an outcome of expanding maritime trade since the Jiajing period (1522–1566) and Zhangzhou production reached a climax in the Wanli period (1572–1620). The Fujianese workshops created a whole spectrum of porcelain products, ranging from monochrome pieces to blue-and-white and polychrome ones. Of the decorative vocabulary that is unique to Zhangzhou kilns, the pavilion and seal design (previously known as the “Split Pagoda” motif) is noteworthy for its decorative originality and transnational appeal. Through a close examination of typical Zhangzhou dishes with seal design, the paper points out that the intriguing theme fuses Daoist ideals with Confucian-recluses’ pursuits. The pluralism in the symbolic meanings of the pattern enhances the marketability of this type of Zhangzhou ware. Around the 1650s, Japanese potters in the Yoshida workshops of Ureshino, Hizen province on the Island of Kyushu started to incorporate the Zhangzhou designs into their local decorative repertoire. But instead of faithfully imitating the seal pattern from the Fujianese prototype, Yoshida decorators seamlessly wove Japanese fashion into Chinese-inspired motifs. Popular designs from nearby Arita, the porcelain capital of Japan, further stimulated Yoshida artisans to create affordable fusion-style products for Southeast Asian markets that were yet to be dominated by prestigious Hizen porcelains. However, the efflorescence of Yoshida porcelains with seal design was rather short-lived due to limited native resources and fierce competition in and outside Kyushu.

A Sudden Turnaround: The Pro-Han Immigration Policy in Manchuria and Its Abrupt Abrogation in Early Qing Era

For most of Qing domination over China, the Manchu rulers strictly controlled or even prohibited migration of Chinese people to the dynasty’s Motherland (long xing zhi di 龍興之地). Only two brief phases are an exception, namely the mid Shunzhi to early Kangxi and Yongzheng periods. During the former, in 1653, a “Regulation for the repopulation and land reclamation of Liaodong” was promulgated, establishing alluring incentives for whoever managed to move a hundred or more people to the region east of the Liao river. Only fifteen years later, when the maneuver had just started to produce some results, the Qing court abolished it. In the long term, such a change of direction appears perfectly normal, considering that later on most of the lands would be assigned to the Eight Banners and the state would have striven to keep the Chinese out. Nevertheless, in the short term, the decision seemed to come out of the blue. An interesting debate on what might have determined the turnabout began in the early twentieth century, and some most recent contributions have been published in the 2000s; yet none of the thesis proposed so far is fully convincing. On the basis of sources that have not yet been taken into account, this paper further investigates into the matter and aims at demonstrating that the concerns which compelled the rulers to officially oppose immigration in the following decades already existed in the very first years of Kangxi reign.

Between Machine and Man: The Question of Creation in the Transmission of Western Mechanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century China (A Case Study)

This paper aims to explore how the Jesuit missionaries and their Chinese supporters negotiated the tension between mechanical knowledge, along with its embedded theological implications and the Chinese worldview by examining the Yuanxi qiqi tushuo luzui 遠西奇器圖說錄最 and the biography of a Chinese inventor Huang Lüzhuang 黃履莊 in the context of the polemical debates on Christianity in seventeenth century China. Centring on the concept of creation, I demonstrate how the understanding of machine or automata relates to broader questions regarding the natural world and human agency at the juncture of intellectual transformations in both Europe and China: While some European thinkers, inspired by machines, promoted the worldview of a passive nature analogous to machine, concepts of unity and spontaneity provided the Chinese with an opportunity to account for the autonomy of the machine as something operating in accordance with the self-generating natural world.

Collecting Chinese Objects in Slovenia at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

This article addresses the practices of collecting Chinese objects that were brought to the territory of present-day Slovenia by sailors, missionaries, travellers, and others who travelled to China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the time, this territory was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; we will, therefore, begin with the brief historical context of the Empire and its contact with China, followed by a discussion on the nature of collecting Chinese objects in Slovenian territories at that time. We will further examine the status of the individuals who travelled to China and the nature and extent of the objects they brought back. The article will also highlight the specific position of the Slovenian territory within the history of Euro-Asian cultural connections, and address the relevant issues—locally and globally—of the relationship between the centres and peripheries with regard to collecting practices.

Collecting Chinese Flora: Eighteenth- to Nineteenth-Century Sino-British Scientific and Cultural Exchanges as Seen through British Collections of China Trade Botanical Paintings

In the eighteenth to nineteenth century, British botanists collected thousands of Chinese plants to advance their knowledge of natural history. John Bradby Blake was the first British botanist to systematically collect Chinese plants in the 1770s, a time when foreigners could only access Guangzhou (Canton). This article demonstrates that Blake’s Chinese flora project heavily relied on the work of Chinese ‘go-betweens’, notably painter Mak Sau, who painted Chinese plants in a scientifically accurate manner. The genre of Canton Trade botanical paintings is a hybrid between European botanical tradition and Chinese bird-and-flower paintings that had previously been difficult to analyse owing to the lack of chronological evidence. Thanks to new data uncovered in different Blake collections, this article begins to untangle the chronology of these botanical paintings, and in the process uncovers the untold agency of Chinese ‘go-betweens’ in early Sino-Western scientific and cultural exchanges.

Collecting the Pei Cen Stele in Qing China

This article investigates three vignettes in the collecting of the Pei Cen Stele during the eighteenth century. A Han-dynasty monument in Barköl, Xinjiang, the Pei Cen Stele tells of an unrecorded military achievement against the Xiongnu in 137. I begin by discussing how court officials used this artefact to support the Qing imperial expansion into central Asia. The second episode identifies four major types of copies of the Pei Cen Stele—facsimiles, replicas, tracing copies, and forgeries—and examines their varied functions to the epigraphic community at the time. The final section analyses the transitional style of this inscription through calligraphers’ innovative transcriptions. Appropriations of the Pei Cen Stele in these political, social, and artistic contexts, I argue, pinpoint the idea of collecting as a form of invention in the Qing dynasty. Collectors invented the Pei Cen Stele as a symbol of prosperity, a cultural relic, and a calligraphy exemplar.

Pang Yuanji, Traditionalist/Modernist

Pang Yuanji 龐元濟 (1864–1949) is well known for the important catalogues he compiled of his ancient painting collections, especially the Xuzhai minghua lu 虛齋名 畫錄. Less recognized is his patronage of numerous artists who lived and worked in his home. Less known still are the roles he played in the modernizing art world. Despite Pang’s passion for traditional—if not also conservative—painting styles, his role as the founder of updated hospitals and schools, as one of the first to incorporate new technologies in industry and business, and also his activities with reformers of politics and the arts, point to the agenda of a reformer and modernist. This essay revises our understanding of Pang, changing not only how we understand his contributions to China’s visual culture, but also how we understand him as one who helped bring China into the modern world.

Bibliophilia: the Passion of Ming Dynasty Private Book Collectors

In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), book collecting evolved from an elite pastime into a widespread obsession. ‘Bibliophilia’—the passionate love for books—drove many book collectors to exhaust their fortunes or even trade their concubines for books. As books became indispensable towards gaining respectability in Chinese society, scholars, merchants, and landowners ensured that their residences were thoroughly infused with the prestigious “fragrance of books”. Some literati even regarded book collecting as a man’s most important undertaking in life. Ming private book collectors broke away from tradition and made their private collections available for others to view, exchange, or copy, greatly promoting the circulation of books. Through their incredible attention to the collection, classification, storage, and proofreading of books, Ming bibliophiles contributed enormously to the preservation and transmission of Chinese culture.