The Subversive Art of Portraiture in Seventeenth Century China
The 2026 Annual Sonia Lightfoot Memorial Lecture on Paintings
Speaker: Dr Mariana Zegianini
Traditionally created to commemorate the life of a human being after their death, portraiture in China has been considered at best a minor artistic genre by both early modern and contemporary art scholarship. As a result, until very recently portraits from China have rarely been the focus of sustained and detailed analysis, and have usually been incorporated in long durée historical framings such as ‘portraiture of the Ming-Qing dynasties’.
This lecture in contrast focuses on a small group of portraits and self-portraits of living persons created in the seventeenth century. Painted during a period that witnessed, on the one hand, extreme low temperatures, famines, the suicide of an emperor and the collapse of a dynasty and, on the other, sophisticated art making, the globalisation of commerce, increasing conspicuous consumption, and the establishment of a new dynasty, this lecture argues that some of the artists living during this period turned to portraiture to voice dissent and express their discontent, transforming portraiture into an a subversive art.
This lecture is sponsored by John Lightfoot with additional support from Woolley & Wallis.
Members do not need to book to attend this lecture.
5:30 pm – Society of Antiquaries opens for members’ refreshments
6:15 pm – Lecture begins
Venue Accessibility Information
The Society of Antiquaries welcomes wheelchairs and mobility vehicles however since the main entrance consists of steps they will provide a ramp. Essential companions are also welcome and Hearing Loops are built into the Lecture Room AV system. There are no designated disabled toilets but toilets are located on the ground floor.
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Image: Xiang Shengmo 項聖謨 (1597-1658). Portrait at Fifty 自畫五十歲小像, 1646. Hanging scroll; ink and colours on paper; 34.3 x 28.3 cm. MFA Boston. Gift of the Wan-go H. C. Weng Collection and the Weng family, in honour of Weng Tonghe.
Speaker
Dr Mariana Zegianini - 馬怡如Associate Professor, University of OsloMariana Zegianini is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Oslo. Her research and teaching explore topics ranging from portraiture, decoloniality, gender and ecology in China.
Her book chapter Dressing the Part: Portraying Han Masculinities during the Ming-Qing Dynastic Transition has just been published in the book Portraiture and the Construction of Identity, published by the University of Bonn. She completed her doctoral dissertation ‘Making the Real: Constructing Subjectivities in Portraiture of Late Ming China (ca. 1560-1680)’ at SOAS University of London in 2023, and she is currently working on several projects including the co-editing of Portraiture in Asia since ca. 1600: Making the Subject, under contract with Manchester University Press, and of the Special Issue ‘Portraiture in the Arts of China’ to be published in the Bulletin of SOAS, both projects forthcoming in 2026.
