Concessions in “The Silver Age”: Exhibiting Chinese Export Silverware in China
This paper explores the role of museums and material objects in conveying evolving state priorities to the Chinese public, taking the traveling exhibition The Silver Age: A Special Exhibition of Chinese Export Silver as a case study. The silverwares displayed in the exhibition were produced in the politically contentious treaty port period for foreign consumers, and thus are complicated examples of Chinese cultural heritage. I analyze a set of translation strategies used by the organizers to present the objects as examples of fine craft. I argue that the emergence of Chinese export silverwares as a subject of collecting and display has provided the grounds for a political re-envisioning of China’s “century of humiliation” through the political construct of a “Silver Age.” The exhibition has thus participated in efforts to consolidate a global identity for the Chinese state, while reconciling narratives of past foreign imperialism.
Copyright (c) 2019 Susan Eberhard
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Copyright (c) 2019 Susan Eberhard
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
