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Unveiling the crossroads between British and Chinese visual culture 1870s-1930s
Funded by the UCL Fellowship Incubator Awards, the Chinese Export Watercolours (CEW) Project is a collaboration between the Asia Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and the Department of Information Studies at UCL. The project is led by Dr Hongxing Zhang, Senior Curator of the Chinese Collections at V&A and Dr Jin Gao, Lecturer in Digital Archives at UCL, Visiting Research Fellow at V&A.
The Chinese export watercolours is a type of artworks produced in China for export to Europe and the North America during the 18th and 19th Centuries. They were made by Chinese professional artists living and working in the Chinese treaty ports and the capital Beijing. Catering to the taste of their customers, these works typically depict Chinese traditional beliefs and customs, occupations, manufacture and trades, boats, plants and animals, and they blend Chinese and European painting techniques, resulting in a unique mix of artistic styles. Despite its significance in Global Art History, Chinese export watercolours remains relatively understudied.
This project will digitise the CEW collection acquired by the V&A in the 1870s-1930s, and carry out archive-based provenance research to investigate the formation of the collection. By doing so, the project team aims to address the following research questions:
- How does an extensive examination of the objects and their archives offer a nuanced understanding of the intricate dynamics among artists, dealers, collectors, and curators during the 1870s-1930s?
- How might these insights reshape our interpretation of the interactions between these roles, highlighting the complexities and negotiations involved in their relationship?
The Team
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Shirley Chang MA student in Digital Humanities, UCL |
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Molly Fort PhD Researcher, Institute for Sustainable Heritage, UCL |
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Jin Gao Lecturer in Digital Archives, UCL; Visiting Research Fellow, V&A |
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Xiaohan Jiang MSc student in Digital Humanities, UCL |
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Feichi Li MA student in Digital Humanities, UCL
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Yawen Li MSc student in Digital Humanities, UCL
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Yi-Hsin Lin Data Standard Editor, Chinese Iconography Thesaurus, V&A |
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Bingjun Liu Data Standard Editor, Chinese Iconography Thesaurus, V&A |
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Jiawei Liu MA student in Digital Humanities, UCL |
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Liyuan Liu MSc student in Digital Humanities, UCL |
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José Pedro Sousa MSc student in Digital Humanities, UCL |
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Linminqing Wang MSc student in Digital Humanities, UCL |
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Hongxing Zhang Senior Curator of the Chinese Collections, V&A |
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Yangming Zhang MSc student in Digital Humanities, UCL |
Project Output
- The phase one of the CEW project has resulted in an updated collection catalogue and digitised images on the V&A Explore the Collection website accessible as teaching and research materials for all.
- A blog at UCL DIS website jointly written by the project team, introducing the cataloguing and digitisation practice that helps uncover the intricate stories and cultural significance of the CEW collection:
- Gao, Jin., Zhang,Yangming., Wang, Linminqing., Li, Yawen., Li, Feichi., Chang, Shirley., Liu, Jiawei. (2023) Unveiling the V&A Chinese Export Watercolours (CEW) Collection: A Journey of Digitisation and Discovery, UCL DIS Staff Blog. URL https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dis-blog/2023/09/08/cew/
- A public lecture at the V&A and at UCL to disseminate the research findings, among a wider audience interested in art and the history of cultural interactions between Britain and China.
- More to follow
- The Chinese Iconography Thesaurus (CIT) project:
https://www.vam.ac.uk/research/projects/chinese-iconography-thesaurus-cit - More to follow