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Gilt-metal-zimingzhong-elephant 12-The-Palace-Museum

Gilt-metal zimingzhong by James Cox. Creating pieces out of solid gold was expensive with makers such as James Cox probably hiring gilders to create a solid gold effect, possibly using the ormolu technique, circa 1750-95, Qianlong period © The Palace Museum

ZIMINZHONG: CHINESE CLOCKS

A major new exhibition featuring 23 mechanical clocks from China, zimingzhong, are currently on loan from The Palace Museum. The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the 18th century, from the Chinese trading port of Guangzhou to the Forbidden City in the centre of Beijing. Translating to ‘bells that ring themselves’, zimingzhong are more than just clocks: they present an enchanting combination of a flamboyant aesthetic, timekeeping, music, and sometimes movement using mechanisms new to most people in 1700s China.

Wang Xudong, Director of The Palace Museum, commented on the theme of the exhibition, ‘In the 1580s…

 

MANILA GALLEON

This is the museum’s first large-scale exhibition tracing historical trade links across the Pacific that connected Asia to the Americas and Europe. Featuring over 140 objects spanning the 16th to the 20th centuries, the exhibition allows visitors to discover how the movement of people, goods, and ideas through the Philippines and Mexico created a distinctive cultural and artistic heritage that was shared between seemingly distant regions. Looking at Manila as a precursor of Singapore, the exhibition also reflects on the unique qualities of the blended society and highlights the impact and importance of port cities on global affairs…

 

portrait-of-Hasekura-Tsunenaga.-Image-courtesy-of-private-collection,-Italy

Portrait of Hasekura Tsunenaga by Hasekura Tsunenaga by Archita Ricci (1560-1635) or Claude Deruet (1588-1660), circa 1615, Italy, private collection

Maharaj-Bakhat-Singh,-2022.238

Maharaja Bakhat Singh, Rajasthan, Nagaur, circa 1735, opaque watercolour and gold on paper, 43.5 × 30.5 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Howard Hodgkin Collection, purchase, gift of Florence and Herbert Irving, by exchange

INDIAN SKIES

Howard Hodgkin’s (1932-2017) collection of Indian paintings includes works created at the Mughal, Deccan, Rajput, and Pahari courts dating from the 16th to the 19th century. It presents a unique and personal vision of India’s great painting traditions. The artist Howard Hodgkin had been a devoted collector of Indian paintings since his schooldays in the late 1940s. He first encountered Indian paintings as a student at school, which was later fostered by a chance encounter in London, in 1959, with Stuart Cary Welch, the great American scholar and collector of Indian art, rekindled his passion. Progressively refined over the years, his collection has grown slowly but steadily, and has long been considered one of the finest in the world. It is above all a personal collection, formed by an artist’s eye….

 

MASTER WEAVER ITARO YAMAGUCHI
The second part of the exhibition exploring visual culture influenced by The Tale of Genji in Paris, is dedicated to Itaro Yamaguchi (1901-2007), a master weaver from the Nishijin district of Kyoto, who wove and donated to the Guimet Museum four scrolls illustrating the epic tale.

These scrolls represent the culmination of a life dedicated to weaving. Made by copying painted scrolls from the Heian period (794-1185) and a hybridisation with the high technicality of Western Jacquard mechanics – and its digital avatar – the four scrolls are on show for the first time together in their entirety. To put the creation of the scrolls into context, they are presented with everyday objects, preparatory drawings and other woven works by the master….

Itaro-Yamaguchi-(1901-2007)-Akira-Nonaka-

Itaro Yamaguchi (1901-2007) © Akira Nonaka

Asian and Islamic Works of Art

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