Chinese objects currently on view at the museum.
See also the catalog for the collection: Art of China: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2018) BMCHCSC
ArtStor presents a rich collection of digital images drawn from colleges, universities and museums. At the top of the page, click on "Enter Artstor Digital Library" and either login or sign up at the top of the page. By registering on the site you can make personal image group folders and download images.
Use the Advanced Search to specify geographic areas, time periods, subjects and artistic forms.
1) Freely available resources including exhibition packages, images and datasets
2) Search the image collection by keyword. You can also focus by dynasty or artistic medium.
3) Cultural relic databases. These two databases (Artifacts Archives and Calligraphy and Painting Collection ) allow faster downloads of images.
This database, Mapping Advertising Space, focuses on the history of advertising in China in the first half of the 20th century. Contents include images of ads, maps, and photos as well as analyses of data.
Brings together historic photos, maps, films, texts and references concerning the history of the city, primarily in the first half of the 20th century.
This is part of a larger collection of websites . See the Other Cities tab for links to projects on Hankou, Shanghai, Suzhou and Tianjin.
An exploration of the evolution of Chinese dress, from the dragon robes and lotus shoes of the imperial era to the modern Mao suit. It demolishes the myth of an ancient, unchanging mode of dress. The text is supplemented by six essays by scholars of Chinese dress.
China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795 by Regina Krahl (Text by)
Exhibition catalog with many illustrations and scholarly entries for all exhibits. Also includes a series of essays by leading experts that explore artistic and cultural treasures, describe complex rituals, and explain the social context.
Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery by Patricia Bjaaland Welch
Discusses the meanings behind hundreds of common motifs and symbols found in all forms of Chinese art. A thorough examination of the diverse usage of natural symbols, colors, numbers, inanimate items and personages.
Chinese Painting and Its Audiences by Craig Clunas
A history of the reception of Chinese painting from the sixteenth century to the present. Argues that audiences within China were crucial to the evolution of Chinese painting, Clunas introduces ideal types of viewers: the scholar, the gentleman, the merchant, the nation, and the people. But he also emphasizes that the diversity and quantity of images in Chinese culture make it impossible to generalize definitively about what constitutes Chinese painting.
The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China by Laikwan Pang
Analyzes the multiple and complex ways in which urban Chinese subjects saw themselves interacting with the new visual culture that emerged during the turbulent period between the 1880s and the 1930s. The media and visual forms examined include lithography, photography, advertising, film, and theatrical performances.
Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China, 1368-1644 by Craig Clunas
This is an innovative and accessible history, seen through the riches of its images and objects. Clunas uses a wide range of pictures and objects such as painting and ceramics as well as weapons, architecture, textiles and items of dress, printed books.
Claudia Brown's account ranges from the tumultuous Ming/Qing transition to the end of imperial rule. She examines major influences shaping the period: the role of patrons and collectors, printmaking and publishing, religious themes, women artists and Western influences.
This volume closely "reads" thirty-six masterpieces of Chinese painting from the The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book examines multiple layers of meaning- style, technique, symbolism, past traditions, and the artist's personal circumstances-through accessible texts and numerous large color details.
Ming: 50 Years That Changed China by Craig Clunas (Editor); Jessica Harrison-Hall (Editor)
By focusing on the significant years of the early Ming dynasty and through the themes of court people, extraordinary developments in culture, religion, diplomacy and trade, this book brings the wider history to colorful life. This period also saw the creation of beautiful textiles, paintings, ceramics, gold, jewellery, furniture, jade, and lacquer.
Things Modern: Material Culture and Everyday Life in China by Frank Dikötter
This study of material culture in modern China is divided into one section on the dissemination of new materials and objects, and another on their appropriation in the home and on the body. Covers the period from the middle of the 19th century to the founding of the PRC in 1949.