Page 37 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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became director of the entire exhibition, the art exhibition “would bring together the

finest and most representative arts and crafts of China from the dawn of its history to the

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year 1800.” No explanation for the choice of this particular time span was given.
However, this specific temporal framing of Chinese art history does have the effect of

erasing the era of violent plundering of art objects and neglecting the rather material issue

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of how the objects were obtained by Britain’s collectors in the first place. This

temporal truncation also reinforced the notion that Chinese culture and art after 1800 fell

in decline and did not merit attention, a misconception about nineteenth century Chinese

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art and society that has persisted to this day.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Government did not find itself in an ideal

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governing situation in the 1930s. Although it was the heyday of its rule, the central

government faced severe challenges, such as factional politics, urban unemployment,

revenue collection obstacles, and unrelenting territorial and economic pressure from the

Japanese, as witnessed by worker strikes, riots, and the Manchurian Incident of 1931, to

name only one incident among many. Economically, the currency, agriculture, and

various industries suffered from the effects of worldwide depression underway in this

decade. The Guomindang regime was a young national government, coming to power

and exacting a purge of some of its political enemies as recently as 1929. In short, the

challenges of building a nation with all its attendant concerns over public legitimacy

remained a priority for the incipient national government during the first half of the

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1930s. Thus, when the opportunity to participate in an international exhibition of

Chinese art presented itself to the government in October 1934, the Guomindang foreign

minister based in London, Guo Taiqiெइຩ, enthusiastically recommended that the