EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Art, Archeology & Material Culture 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 86 Piech Xenia (University of Zürich) Stepping Out: Photographic Portraits of Nobles, Radicals & Educated Elites in China’s Earliest Women’s Magazines Key words: Chinese photography, Republican era, visual culture, new woman, Lü Bicheng, Princess Deling, Empress Dowager Cixi In late nineteenth century China, publicly consumable images of womenwere shrouded in an air of indecency and mostly restricted to the world of courtesans and other elements of the unseemly entertainment world. But when, in 1903–1905, the ostensibly traditionalist Empress Dowager CiXi [ 慈禧太后] (1835– 1908) stepped out from behind her yellow gauze curtain and made her photographic portraits publically available, she not only garnered the propagandistic power of photography but also removed the stigma for respectable women to display their photographic likeness in the public domain. Noble ladies such as the concubine Zhen Fei 珍妃 (1876–1900) and Princess Deling 德岭 (1885–1944) spread the practice of photography as a leisure activity among other female courtiers. Some of these portraits, along with those of newly educated elite women and radical emancipators, such as Qiu Jin 秋瑾 (1875–1907) and Lü Bicheng 吕碧城 (1883–1943), found their way into the pages of China’s earliest women’s magazines. Having one’s portrait printed in a literary or lifestyle magazine became an increasingly acceptable form for upper-class women to breach the confines of the inner chambers, the guixiu 闺秀 , thus participating in a kind of visual emancipation. Starting from the assumption that the illustrated magazine played a key role in defining the visual knowledge of the society within which it was viewed, this paper will analyze the way in which these photographs constructed, enabled, defined and queried the changing female gendered identity during the late Qing period and consequently revealed the highly nuanced, intricate and multidimensional construct that was to be the “new Chinese woman”. Selbitschka Armin (New York University (NYU) Shanghai) Earliest and Early Tomb Figurines and Models in Received Literature and the Archaeological Record: A Re-appraisal Key words: Chinese archaeology, continuity Chinese culture, Zhanguo-Han dynasty, mingqi, tomb figurines Numerous Zhanguo through Han period tombs yield miniature figurines and models. They are believed to be part of one single phenomenon that is known as the mingqi 明器 concept. This basically means that objects without practical function were substituting real artifacts. Such finds were vital for turning tombs into ‘underground homes’. The common understanding of tomb miniatures is mainly based on isolated passages from received literature. My talk is going to illustrate that figurines and models initially were, in fact, manifestations of two different phenomena that were later merged in new funerary practices. Thus, relying primarily on transmitted sources distorts the complexities of the archaeological record. Instead, a comprehensive analysis of the latter shows that burials did not simply symbolize ‘underground homes,’ but rather the entire estates of the landowning deceased. Early Chinese tomb miniatures were essential for the creation of personalized underground microcosm or ‘private little empires’. Tang Hui (University of Warwick) Selling Porcelain in Eighteenth-century China Key words: Qing, porcelain, painting, trade, export What porcelain shops looked like in eighteenth-century China is an area which has received very little attention to date. Moreover, due to the lack of material, investigation has been hindered by fragmented textual records. Albums depicting porcelain manufacture and trade were usually examined and studied as a type of export art, which were usually neglected by historians, who criticized the reliability of visual images as evidence. However, this research draws attention to these album paintings and combines historical textual