Page 34 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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before them. One could even order the catalogue by mail. For the Nanjing post-
exhibition showing, the Ministry of Education reprinted the four-volume catalogue

through the Commercial Press. The sale price was set at five dollars. As a newspaper

announcing the catalogues’ publication reported, “Since not everyone could view the

exhibit in Shanghai and London, and furthermore the Nanjing exhibit could only reach a

certain number of eyes, this catalogue is now reissued and can reach a wider

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viewership.” Thus, in light of the large numbers of actual viewers and the broad
dissemination of multiple editions of the exhibition catalogue, the scope of the exhibition

could be said to encompass major urban centers both inside and outside of China. A

copy of the four-volume catalogue sponsored by China’s Ministry of Education,

containing all the government objects sent to England, was presented as a gift to one of

the English committee organizers, Oscar Raphael, by the Minister of Education, Wang

Shijie, in 1936 (Figure 2). In light of the publicity and publications it generated, and as

the first and largest of its kind, the exhibition played a vanguard role in shaping and

defining “China” and “art.”

In view of such an outpouring of printed sources, this chapter examines the

discussion about the exhibition and concepts of Chinese art as generated by the exhibition.

It highlights the groundswell of ideas about Chinese art by including views and sources

written by non-Western viewers and organizers in order to give a more balanced

historical account of the exhibition. For the purposes of this dissertation, it establishes the

context of divergent discussions during the 1930s on porcelain and art in China among

Western collectors, Chinese researchers, and Nationalist Party officials through a focal