Collecting and Displaying China's "Summer Palace" in the West : The Yuanmingyuan in Britain and France.
Title:
Collecting and Displaying China's "Summer Palace" in the West : The Yuanmingyuan in Britain and France.
Histories of material culture and collecting, 1700-1950
Histories of material culture and collecting, 1700-1950.
Author:
Tythacott, Louise editor
ISBN:
9780367432782
Publication Information:
[Place of publication not identified] ROUTLEDGE, 2019.
Physical Description:
xii, 172 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Series:
Histories of material culture and collecting, 1700-1950
Histories of material culture and collecting, 1700-1950.
Contents:
Part I Overviews 1 -- 1 Yuanmingyuan and its Objects / Louise Tythacott Tythacott, Louise 3 -- 2 Afterlives of a Ruin: The Yuanmingyuan in China and the West / James L. Hevia Hevia, James L. 25 -- 3 From the Summer Palace 1860: Provenance and Politics / Nick Pearce Pearce, Nick 38 -- Part II Yuanmingyuan in Britain 51 -- 4 Yuanmingyuan and Design Reform in Britain / Kate Hill Hill, Kate 53 -- 5 "True Beauty of Form and Chaste Embellishment": Summer Palace Loot and Chinese Porcelain Collecting in Nineteenth-century Britain / Stacey Pierson Pierson, Stacey 72 -- 6 "Chinese Gordon" and the Royal Engineers Museum / James Scott Scott, James 87 -- 7 "Rose-water Upon His Delicate Hands": Imperial and Imperialist Readings of the Hope Grant Ewer / Kevin Mclougiilin Mclougiilin, Kevin 99 -- Part III Yuanmingyuan in France 121 -- 8 Henri Bertin (1720-1792) and Images of the Yuanmingyuan in Eighteenth-century France / John Finlay Finlay, John 123 -- 9 Empress Eugénie's Chinese Museum at the Chateau of Fontainebleau: An Unusual Décor in the "House of the Ages" / Vincent Droguet Droguet, Vincent 138 -- 10 Yuanmingyuan on Display: Ornamental Aesthetics at the Musée Chinois / Greg M. Thomas Thomas, Greg M. 149.
Abstract:
In October 1860, at the culmination of the Second Opium War, British and French troops looted and destroyed one of the most important palace complexes in imperial China - the Yuanmingyuan. Known in the West as the "Summer Palace", this site consisted of thousands of buildings housing a vast art collection. It is estimated that over a million objects may have been taken from the palaces in the Yuanmingyuan - and many of these are now scattered around the world, in private collections and public museums. With contributions from leading specialists, this is the first book to focus on the collecting and display of "Summer Palace" material over the past 150 years in museums in Britain and France. It examines the way museums placed their own cultural, political and aesthetic concerns upon Yuanmingyuan material, and how displays - especially those at the Royal Engineers Museum in Kent, the National Museum of Scotland and the Musee Chinois at the Chateau of Fontainebleau - tell us more about European representations and images of China, than they do about the Yuanmingyuan itself.
Corporate Subject:
Added Author:
Bibliographical References:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Field 805:
npmlib 11003754 NK1068 C65 yh