A Time of Transition: Two Collectors of Chinese Art

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, [Published date: 1991]. Hardcover, x, 115 pp.; 27 c. First Edition. Black and white Illustrations. Very good in very good dust jacket. Brown cloth covered boards with gold lettering on front and spine. Light bumping and scuffing to edges and corners of covers. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Dust jacket has a few tiny nicks and light creasing to edges. Light overall scuffing to jacket as well. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. Contains two essays examining the lives and influential collecting activities of Viceroy Tuan-fang (1861-911) and Dr. John C. Ferguson (1866 - 1945), two important collectors of Chinese art during the transition from Imperial to Republican China. Tuan- fang was a viceroy and major collector in the final years of the Ch'ing dynasty; Ferguson was an American missionary and scholar who played a crucial role in introducing Chinese art to Western audiences. Contents include: Preface; Introduction; I. A Time of Transition: Tuan-fang, 1861 - 1911; II. A Time of Transition: John C. Ferguson, 1866 - 1945; Chinese and Japanese glossary; Selected bibliography. [From front jacket flap] For many years Dr. Lawton has studied the origins of certain collections of Chinese art and the people who formed them. The lives of two of those collectors are retold here, with details about the influential roles they played in the time of transition between the old and the new China and about how, through an accident of fate, they met and became friends. Viceroy Tuan-fang, the subject of the first essay, was a fascinating personality and prodigious collector during the final years of the Ch'ing dynasty. Dr. John C. Ferguson, the subject of the second essay, was an American missionary, educator and collector who lived in China in the decades before and after the establishment of the Republic.