The inaugural Susan Chen Foundation Lecture was delivered by Dr. Pengliang Lu of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900.
In Spring 2025, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will present ‘Recasting the Past’, an exhibition exploring Chinese bronzes made from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries, an important but often overlooked category of Chinese art. So-called ‘later Chinese bronzes’ have long been stigmatized as poor imitations of earlier ancient bronzes. This exhibition seeks to redress this bias by showing the technical virtuosity and aesthetic creativity of these later creations and revealing their immense impact on various aspects of cultural life. Some notoriously difficult issues, such as Song-Yuan (12th–14th century) bronzes, Xuande era (r.1425–1435) censers and archaistic inlaid bronzes, will be explored relying on datable works, archaeological discoveries as well as cross-medium comparisons.
Featuring over 200 works from major collections in China, Japan, Korea, Europe and America, the exhibition will also include paintings, ceramics, jades, and other media to complete the picture of how bronze remained a key symbolic medium in the world of later imperial China.
This lecture was first presented to members of the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong on 17 October 2024.
