KATHARINE P. BURNETT
陶幽庭

Professor of Art History, University of California-Davis

November 9, 2023

5:00pm

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA

This presentation investigates the exchange of tea culture and teapots between China and Vietnam between 1300–1700, with an emphasis on the late Ming period. This is the time when steeped tea became the norm and teapots began to be a required form. Although it is well-known that China was trading tea and ceramics to other East Asian and European countries at this time, this project initiates the exploration of China’s cultural exchanges surrounding tea with its Southeast Asian neighbors starting with Vietnam. It aims to find out how Vietnam responded to this trade, especially through its own ceramic industry. Problematically, although Vietnam closely copied many important Chinese ceramic shapes and wares, examples of the teapot are curiously absent. At the same time as asking, Where are the Vietnamese teapots? this presentation also attempts to determine exactly what is a teapot (vs. a water or wine pot) in these early years, a task that turns out to be not as obvious as one might think.

The Weedon Lecture is presented in partnership with UVA's East Asia Center at The Fralin's Miller Gallery, Thursday Nov. 9th at 5 pm and will be followed by a reception including light refreshments.

Katharine Burnett's research explores China’s historical art theory and criticism, art and politics, art collecting and display, and the international spread of visual and material culture relating to the global tea trade. Burnett is a Public Scholars Fellow; Professor and Chair, Department of Art and Art History; and Founder and Director, Global Tea Institute for the Study of Tea Culture and Science at the University of California, Davis. Her publications include Dimensions of Originality: Essays on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Theory and Criticism (Chinese University Press, 2013); and Shaping Chinese Art History: Pang Yuanji and His Painting Collection (Cambria Press, 2020), which was listed among Book Authority’s 16 Best New Art History Books To Read In 2021. The Chinese translation of Dimensions of Originality is forthcoming from Beijing Foreign Studies University, Academy of Comparative Civilization and Intercultural Communication and Da Xiang Publish House. She has served as Guest Editor and contributor to the Special Issue: “Decadence (or Not) in the Ming Dynasty,” Ming Studies, 71, (May 2015). Her essay, “Weirder than Weird: ‘Weird-Figure’ Paintings of Seventeenth-Century China,” is forthcoming in Artibus Asiae; and her essay, “Contemporaneity in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Painting, Theory, and Criticism,” is forthcoming in Ming Studies. Her unpublished talk, “Mediated Meaning of a Magnificent Rock: Using Wu Bin’s Words to Understand His Painting, Ten Views of the Scholar's Rocks: Ongoing Explorations of a Cultural Tradition, (presented live online for the Paragon Book Gallery, Beijing, and Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, February 3, 2023) received over 3.5k viewers and over 18.1k “likes” on social media.