Superfluous Things : : Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China / / Craig Clunas.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Hawaii Press Archive eBook-Package Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Clunas, Craig,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2023]; ©1991
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (246 p.)

Now in paperbackThis outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes “superfluous things”—the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China—and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Preface to the Paperback Edition -- Introduction -- 1 Books about things: The literature of Ming connoisseurship -- 2 Ideas about things: Themes in Ming connoisseurship literature -- 3 Words about things: The language of Ming connoisseurship -- 4 Things of the past: Uses of the antique in Ming material culture -- 5 Things in motion: Ming luxury objects as commodities -- 6 Anxieties about things: Consumption and class in Ming China -- Conclusion -- Appendix I Editors of Treatise on Superfluous Things -- Appendix II Selected prices for works of art and antique artefacts c. 1560-1620 -- Notes -- Bibliography of primary sources -- Bibliography of secondary literature -- Index