Craig Clunas
@craigclunas
art historian, Aberdonian
It's #WorldElephantDay, so here's a pensive (or plain grumpy?) specimen from Ming China, photographed at the Ming tombs c. 1906 www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commo...
Just now reading proofs of an excellent forthcoming work on the multilingual #Ming www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067..., so here's the 1409 Galle trilingual (Chinese, Persian, Tamil) inscription for #EpigraphyTuesday www.unesco.org/en/memory-wo...
Envoy with a Tribute Lion 西番貢獅圖, Ming dynasty China, 1400-1500. British Museum www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o... #worldlionday
Or perhaps Ganymede (for the G), carried off by Jupiter in the form of an eagle? www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/...
Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1883), "Flood in the Highlands" #Aberdeen Art Gallery as #OnlineArtExchange does Scottish art artuk.org/discover/art...
Clad in the elegant form of a Penguin Classic, Wen Zhenheng's late Ming treatise on how to be 雅 now greets the modern world; translation by Tony Blishen, proud to contribute an intro #earlymodern #skystorians
Cao Fei, artist of 'RMB City', has a big new solo show in Basel; she's interviewed here for @burlingtoncontemp.bsky.social, about "the future, cyclical time, the apocalypse, digital transparency and technological disillusionment." contemporary.burlington.org.uk/articles/art...
Published by @aeon.co , some thoughts on how we know what we (think we) know about the imperial family of Ming China, subject of my last book @reaktionbooks.bsky.social aeon.co/essays/how-l...
There's a £1k prize going for a previously unpublished essay of 1000–1500 word on South Netherlandish Art 1400-1800. Open to early career scholars worldwide (15 years from most recent post-graduate degree). Here's the details, and please spread the word: www.burlington.org.uk/jobs-noticeb...
Children in the streets of Linxian, early 1975. Photo by Geekin Chou.
CfP: Global Histories of Knowledge: Circulations and Encounters, in Oxford, June 2026
Octavia Elfrida Saunders Memorial Lecture 1 April 2026 , 5 pm @uniofstandrews.bsky.social Craig Clunas, "Painting the learned woman in Ming China" events.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/octav...
Now available from @reaktionbooks.bsky.social reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/sons-of... Here I've tried to give an account in English of the Ming ruling house as a family enterprise (and not forgetting imperial aunties)
Sir Edmund Backhouse sends a telegram from Peking to @bodleian.ox.ac.uk , February 1926. Says it all, really.
On James Joyce's birthday, huzzah for Dai Congrong 戴从容, translator of 2013 best-selling "Finnegan's Wake" Chinese version. (Now tackling *that* would keep me quiet for a bit) His thoughts on the task here iscen.bfsu.edu.cn/__local/0/B8... #芬尼根的守灵夜
Nativity Scene, from Giulio Aleni, "Illustrated Life of the Lord of Heaven", 天主降生出像經解, Fuzhou, 1637
St Nicholas, Barfrestone, in all its Norman 5* small-but-splendidness
Definitely unheimlich and well worth a visit, Cathie Pilkington’s exhibition “Housekeeper” at Freud Museum London www.freud.org.uk/exhibitions/...
There's a £2.5k prize offered for a piece of writing (1000-1500 words) on #sculpture by an early career scholar, deadline 4 May 2026, all the details here so please circulate widely www.burlington.org.uk/jobs-noticeb...
Appropriately, your man apparently insisted that his name was pronounced 'Bacchus'
The anniversary of Su Shi’s death #otd, so here’s the meat shaped like the stone shaped like the meat in the NPM Taipei restaurant.
There's £1k going to some deserving early career art historian for an unpublished piece of work on things South Netherlandish 1400-1800. Deadline to get it in is 1 September www.burlington.org.uk/jobs-noticeb...
Donated to @royalasiaticsoc.bsky.social in 1852 as ‘a North American Indian drawing, or picture writing’, this (fabulous) image lacks precise identification. Anybody out there have ideas? Know someone who would? (More info at royalasiaticsociety.org/artworks-dig...)
Much recommended in terms of taste (first time for growing these) - look forward to seeing how well they store.
Variety “Bim (Vitanoire), 26/7. Yes, they are blue all the way through. #allotment #potatoes