Lecture

Oriental Rug and Textile Society Lecture: ‘Tuduc or not Tuduc – that is the question.’ by Stefano Ionescu. The University Womens Club is at 2 Audley Square, South Audley Street, Mayfair, London W1K 1DB. Talks begin at 7 pm. Free to members; non-members are asked to pay £7 per talk.

The lecture will cover the forgotten history of carpet weaving in Persia during the 18th and 19th centuries. It will show how Safavid styles morphed and evolved as they were adopted (and adapted) by rural weavers, eventually coalescing into the recognizable types of the last 150 years. This overlooked period, which has been the main focus of […]

Jacqueline Simcox will bring us a lecture for the SOAS short course: Beijing in the 18th Century! Beijing in the Eighteenth century was the capital of the multi-ethnic Qing empire at the zenith of its power. It was from Beijing, and the Forbidden City – the largest palace complex in the world – that three extraordinary Manchu emperors: Kangxi, Yongzheng […]

Join V&A Curator and Conservators to discover the story behind a magnificent silver tablet commissioned in 1867 by 79 members of the Chinese community in Hong Kong for James Legge (1815–1897), Scottish missionary, teacher, and giant in Sinology. James Legge arrived in Hong Kong in 1843 just after the British colony had been established. He […]

Tue 1 Feb, 5–6pm Online With Dr Scott Redford Nasser D Khalili Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology School of Oriental and African Studies University of London In the west, the collecting of Islamic ceramics has traditionally taken a back seat to east Asian ceramics. Why is this so? This lecture explores the roles played […]

Peter Lam is the 2021 winner of  the R.C. Hills Gold Medal, the most prestigious award granted by the OCS, given to a lifelong scholar who has made a major contribution to the field of Asian art. In his R.C. Hills lecture Peter Lam will discuss the monumental porcelain ewer (British Museum Acc no: 1936,1012.206), decorated […]

Organised by The Iran Heritage FoundationDate Wednesday 28th October, 17.30 (London, GMT) Description Indians appear in Persian painting long before the Safavid period (1501-1722), either as characters in illustrations of the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi or Khamsa of Nizami or as unidentified labourers, elephant jockeys and the like. Over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Persian depiction […]

Japanese Ceramics in the Royal Collection by Rachel Peat, Assistant Curator of Non-European Works of Art at the Royal Collection Trust. This lecture will the explore the rich and important Japanese ceramic holdings in the Royal Collection, setting them in the broader context of Anglo-Japanese courtly relations and the changing face of British royal furnishing. […]

Fragments of China: Destruction, Location and the Collecting of Chinese Architectural Remains in 19th century Britain.

Coffee houses in Istanbul were places of social gathering – conversations were had, backgammon and chess played, and books and poems read aloud. From here, coffee houses spread through Europe – opening in Venice, Paris, London and Vienna – but they never strayed far from the Istanbul model.

This talk will explore the rich legacy of Anatolian rugs in Transylvania and the unique historical circumstances under which they came to be preserved in this region. Followed by a reception from 6pm.

In this special lecture to coincide with the release of his new book Great State: China and the World, Timothy Brook examines China’s relationship with the world from the Yuan through to the present by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people navigating the spaces where China met and meets the world. Bureaucrats, horse […]

Shirley Mueller’s an internationally known collector of Chinese export porcelain, and a neuroscientist which, she discovered, had broader applications for collecting.

By Dr Yu-ping Luk The lecture considers the history and production of kingfisher feather jewellery and explores how it came to be collected in Europe.

With Ben Okri and introduced by Venetia Porter. In collaboration with Magic of Persia Foundation.

Lecture in Mandarin ‘Song Qingbai Ware Production and Society in Jingdezhen’ with May Huang, Director of Dongjiao Centre, Hingdezhen

Lecture in English ‘Song Qingbai Ware Production and Society in Jingdezhen’ with May Huang, Director of Dongjiao Centre, Hingdezhen

Lecture with Dr Malcolm McNeill on ‘Highlights from Christie’s Hong Kong Autumn Auctions of Fine Chinese Paintings’

The Annual Benjamin Zucker Lecture

Lars Tharp presents detailed close-ups of some of his favourite Chinese ceramics, pieces whose tell-tale clues – forever locked in clay – reveal the minds and methods of potters long gone.

This talk by Alexandra Green, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Southeast Asia, explores Sir Stamford Raffles’ collections of Hindu-Buddhist artefacts and drawings collected during his time as Lieutenant-Governor of the island of Java, now part of Indonesia.

The social and cultural history of Chinese wallpapers in a global context.

Exhibition co-curator Julia Tugwell, British Museum, gives a 45-minute illustrated introduction to the exhibition Inspired by the east: how the Islamic world influenced western art.

This talk explores the lives and work of a number of figures who dominated the world of the Chinese cartoon during the 1920s-1940s. This period saw the rise of the cartoon as a major part of Shanghai’s jazz-age, as well as its widespread use as a propaganda tool. The work of cartoonist Ding Cong is […]

Visualising the Silk Road: Integrating Commerce and Aesthetics in Colonial Java with Dr. Laurie Margot Ross