Future Lectures
Each year, the Oriental Ceramic Society (OCS) curates a series of lectures that are given by distinguished scholars. These talks are scheduled once a month in the evening and are usually held in the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly.
Please see the upcoming lectures below.
Ceramics in Japanese woodblock prints
The talk presents ceramic wares that were depicted in Japanese woodblock prints. It will introduce the different types of wares incorporated into print designs and illustrate the large variety of settings of the vessels. Often depicted as part of accoutrements in prints of beauties (bijinga), they are also showcased in context of tea ceremony and […] ...
Weapons in Late Shang (c.1250-1050 BCE) China: Beyond Typology and Ritual
The late Shang at Yinxu is a major period, foundational to the forming of Chinese civilization and renowned for its magnificent bronze vessels. However, the even larger quantities of weapons in bronze and other materials have attracted less scholarly attention. Do they simply represent the status and military role of the deceased? Were they merely […] ...
Previous Lectures
Beyond the Borders: Asian Ceramics in the National Trust for Scotland
ExpiredIn the absence of a luxury ceramic industry, Scotland’s gentry relied heavily on imported Asian ceramics for use and display in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From a Baroque-style China Closet at Newhailes House in East Lothian, completed in 1821, to the cherished treasures of the Dukes of Hamilton at Brodick Castle on the Isle […] ...
Past Collectors, Their Collections And The Art Market
ExpiredThe Oriental Ceramic Societyis most grateful to Sotheby’s for sponsoring the 2023 Asian Art in London/OCS Lecture. However, instead of a lecture, Henry Howard-Sneyd will be in conversation with Roger Keverne on Past Collectors, their Collections and the Art Market. The conversation will be about a number of deceased major collectors, some key objects from […] ...
Gifts from the Ming Court to the Islamic World
ExpiredThis talk presents diplomatic letters, including those compiled in chancery manuals, as source materials that illustrate in detail the material culture of diplomacy between Ming China and the Islamic world. It seeks to shed new light on the Ming items sent as gifts, the exchange etiquette, and the reception of such objects in the Islamic […] ...
Jun, Yaozhou and Longquan: Three Different Kilns, Three Common Factors
ExpiredThis is the AGM 2023 Lecture and Reception The lecture draws on material used in the essays for three recent books: Dazzling Official Jun Wares from Museums and Collections Around the World (2021): Yaozhou Wares From Museums and Art Institutes Around the World: Including Yaozhou Tribute Wares (2022): Jade Green and Kingfisher Blue: Longquan […] ...
The Cost of Receiving Foreign Tributes to the Qing Court
ExpiredEmperor Qianlong had received three European embassies - that of Portugal, England and Holland. Historians usually focus on the kowtow ceremony, or the large sums of money the Europeans spent buying the presents, but they seldom speak of the expenses that the Chinese government had to bear to receive those embassies. ...
Chinese Plates fit for an Acehnese Queen
ExpiredAll over Southeast Asia is found a particular type of coarse Chinese export porcelain traditionally known as ‘Swatow’ (now more accurately termed Zhangzhou) ware, dating from the late Ming period. One characteristic type of large Swatow dish had a central circle with eight smaller circles around it, all filled with inscriptions in Arabic script. These […] ...
A Discreet Collection of Curiosities: Adèle and Salomon de Rothschild’s Chinese Jades
ExpiredThis is our annual Woolf Jade Lecture, kindly sponsored by Jonathan Woolf and the Woolf Charitable Trust. In 1922, Adèle de Rothschild died in her Parisian mansion of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild and all her collection was bequeathed to the French state, to create a Foundation that could support contemporary artists. Among the many […] ...
Traditions of the Avant-Garde: Radicals and Experimentalists in Early Chinese Art
ExpiredThe 2023 Sonia Lightfoot Memorial Lecture on Paintings will be given by Professor J P Park of Oxford University. Various kinds of genre-breaking performance art such as John Cage’s 4’33 (1952), Rauschenberg’s Erased De Kooning (1953), and Jackson Pollock’s action paintings (1950s) have been recognized as the epitome of artistic originality in the postmodern era. […] ...
The Art of Japanese Porcelain – The Irene Finch Collection at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
ExpiredIn 2012, Bristol Museum was gifted over 600 pieces of Japanese porcelain by the collector, Irene Finch (1918-2019). Miss Irene Finch was a retired science teacher with a deep passion for Japanese porcelain. For over thirty years she collected, researched, and published on the subject. As some members may recall, she was an active member […] ...
Connecting Empires: The Belitung Shipwreck and Maritime Trade in ninth century Asia
ExpiredSometime in the middle of the ninth century, a ship set sail on a voyage that would take it from the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean. It was a journey that connected two empires, the Abbasid Caliphate (in modern-day Iran and Iraq) and Tang dynasty China, as well as many different cultures in India […] ...
“A Collector’s View”
ExpiredThis is the Bonhams/OCS Asian Art in London Lecture 2022. Sam Marsh, a collector of Chinese porcelain and scholar’s table items, also a long time member of the Oriental Ceramics Society, will give a talk entitled “A Collectors View”. In the talk, he will share some of his views of 17th century porcelain, touching on […] ...
The business of making porcelain: life and work in the city of blue and white
ExpiredThis talk will focus on Jingdezhen, the city we all know as the site of imperial ceramics production. Much has been written about the extraordinary wares that were produced here through the centuries and the ways in which these reflected changing tastes and preferences of consumers. We also know a great deal about the materials […] ...
