NOV/DEC 2018

VOLUME 49 - NUMBER 6

This issue features three articles in our series ‘Women in Asian Art’. The first, by co-curator Daisy Yiyou Wang, celebrates the exhibition ‘Empresses of China’s Forbidden City’, currently on view at the Peabody Essex Museum and moving next year to the Freer|Sackler. The show includes some 200 works from the Palace Museum as well as pieces from US museums, and seeks to increase awareness of the presence and influence of women at the Qing dynasty court. The second article also focuses on the Qing imperial court, specifically on Empress Dowager Cixi. The de facto ruler at the end of the dynasty, Cixi had numerous images made of herself masquerading as the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Guanyin. Yuhang Li introduces a unique painting of Cixi in this guise, produced for a specific patron without Cixi’s consent. Our third article in the series turns to Japan, with a look at Kaigetsudō school depictions of courtesans. Curator Janice Katz discusses these large-scale images in connection with the Weston Collection exhibition, on view at the Art Institute of Chicago from November to next January.

Included also in this issue is an overview of recent Chinese art acquisitions at the Norton Museum of Art, by curator Laurie Barnes. The Florida museum will be opening a brand new wing in February, with five galleries dedicated to the display of Chinese art. Ina Asim’s article considers a highlight of the opening exhibition, a set of Ming dynasty panels depicting the Lantern Festival in Nanjing.

Next in our line-up, Nicoletta Celli takes a fresh look at some early bronze Buddhas, with implications for the wider field of the transfer of Buddhist art to China. Ada de Wit and colleagues present some Asian artworks in the Wallace Collection, while James Beattie and Richard Bullen reveal how the Chinese art collection of New Zealander Rewi Alley was deployed as a form of cultural diplomacy.

FEATURES
Daisy Yiyou Wang. Empresses of China’s Forbidden City’: New Perspectives on Qing Imperial Women
Yuhang Li. 50 Painting Empress Dowager Cixi as Guanyin for Missionaries’ Eyes
Laurie Barnes. The New Chinese Galleries at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
Ina Asim. The Lantern Festival Panels in the Norton Museum of Art
Emerging Voices: Kristina Kleutghen
PREVIEWS & REVIEWS
Nicoletta Celli. Chinese or Not Chinese? Investigating Early Bronze Buddhas
Ada de Wit, with Helen Jacobsen and Tobias Capwell. Asian Art in The Wallace Collection
James Beattie and Richard Bullen.The Rewi Alley Collection and Cultural Diplomacy: A New Perspective on China-New Zealand Relations
Chen Shen. A Dragon Jade and A Dragon Tile: A Matter of ‘Fashion Culture’
Darielle Mason. Book Review Khajuraho: Indian Temples and Sensuous Svultures by Gilles Beguin
INTERVIEWS
An Interview with Norman Kurland
NEWS
Announcements
Janice Katz. Two Floating Worlds: Ukiyo-e Prints and Paintings of the Kaigetsudo School
COMMENTARY
Pimpim de Azevedo. The Transformation of Leh Old Town: An Update