In the study of the Chinese history of collecting art, the antiquities market is by all means an important link that cannot be overlooked. However, due to the limited amount of documentation available, studies on collecting history rarely touch on this market. Fortunately, the amount of related material from the late Qing dynasty is quite plentiful. As a result, this study attempts to integrate the price fluctuations in the markets for bronzes as well as painting and calligraphy as a means to discuss the collecting activities of officials during this period. In doing so, it offers observations on the modes of cultural consumption on the part of the Chinese social elite during this tumultuous time in history.

Bio:

Professor Qianshen Bai graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Peking University and a Ph.D. from Yale University. From 1997 to 2015 he taught art history at Boston University and currently is a professor of Zhejiang University. He is the author of Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century (Harvard University Asia Center, 2003), and several books in Chinese. He received a fellowship from The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2004 and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2011. He is now conducting research on Wu Dacheng, a government official, scholar, collector, and painter-calligrapher, in the late Qing dynasty. Professor Bai is also an accomplished calligrapher.