In the field of Chinese art history, James Cahill is without doubt a national treasure. As Craig Clunas reminded us in his “Afterward” to Elegant Debts: The Social Art of Wen Zhengming [Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2004, p. 180], there was a time when Professor Cahill defended the amateur approach of the literati artists of the Ming dynasty Wu school. Given his groundbreaking contributions to the study of literati landscape paintings, it may come as a surprise that Professor Cahill's latest work concerns what some might term lowbrow paintings from an understudied late time period. This book focuses on colorful figure paintings from the period 1644 to 1800: many of beautiful women (the meiren genre); some for the commemoration or delectation of emperors; and the lion's share products of professional urban studios catering to functional events, the well-to-do, or commercial commissions. Cahill offers evidence that Qing courtesans and gentry...

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