Chinese Silks

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Dieter Kuhn Editor

Yale University Press; in association with the Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, New Haven, CT, London, Beijing, 2012, English

Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design; Nonfiction, Textile Design

9 x 12 inches, hardcover, 624 pages, 600 color and 50 black-and-white illustrations

ISBN: 9780300111033

Suggested Retail Price: $85.00

From the Publisher. Over the past fifty years, archaeological explorations in China have unearthed a wealth of textile materials, some dating as far back as five thousand years. In this magnificently researched and illustrated book, preeminent Western and Chinese scholars draw upon these spectacular discoveries to provide the most thorough account of the history of silk ever written.

Encyclopedic in breadth, the volume presents a chronological history of silk from a variety of perspectives, including archaeological, technological, art historical, and aesthetic. The contributors explore the range of uses for silk, from the everyday to the sublime. By directly connecting recently found textile artifacts to specific references in China's vast historical literature, they illuminate the evolution of silk making and the driving social forces that have inspired the creation of innovative textiles through the millennia.

Dieter Kuhn is professor emeritus of sinology, University of Würzburg, Germany. James C. Y. Watt is Brooke Russell Astor Chairman Emeritus, Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chen Juanjuan was senior research fellow, Palace Museum, Beijing. Huang Nengfu is professor at the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing. Li Wenying is deputy director, Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology. Peng Hao is professor of archaeology, Wuhan University, and senior research fellow at Jingzhou Museum, Hubei. Zhao Feng is vice director, China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou; director, Chinese Centre for Textile Identification and Conservation, Hangzhou; and professor of textile and costume history, Donghua University, Shanghai.

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