Reference
Look Something Up
查阅
Four things to look something up in. The first two are catalogued here; the other two send you elsewhere — this archive holds twenty-seven objects, and of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese textiles that survive, nearly all are somewhere else.
01Object Records
One record per object: material, weave structure, technique, motif, form, dimensions, provenance. Anything not measured or established is marked as pending rather than filled in by guess.
27 records
02Motif Reference
Not a catalogue of patterns but a gathering of the same motif as it appears across different objects. The differences in how it is drawn are concrete evidence for dating, not decorative knowledge.
10 entries
03Bibliography
The reference works this archive relies on, each with a note on what it is useful for. Fields are checked against a publisher, museum or library record; what could not be confirmed is left blank, and doubts are stated on the entry.
14 titles
04Where to Look
Institutions whose Chinese textile holdings can be searched online, each checked by opening the search interface. Image terms are listed separately: finding an object is easy, knowing whether you may reproduce it is not.
14 institutions
Not sure where to begin? Read the four parts of the learning line first; the objects give up much more once you have.