A Chorus of Colors: Chinese Glass from Three American Collections (review)

Reviews 247© 1997 by University ofHawai'i Press various genres as well as an assessment oftheir political and social impact on Greater China. "Greater China and the Chinese Overseas" by Wang Gungwu addresses a very important aspect ofGreater China: fhe Chinese who now have settled outside fhe region in Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe, and Nordi America. Wang attempts to reorder the debate away from traditional conceptions by switching from "overseas Chinese" who are always supposed to be just about to return to the mofherland to "Chinese overseas" who have already made a place for themselves abroad and thus have a more ambiguous relation to China. This is an important shift, but in my reading the new concept does not stick, for Wang rehearses many ofhis old articles to talk about this important phenomenon. I recommend each offhe articles individuaUy, with Harding providing an exceUent overview. It was disappointing that this conference did not produce a more robust and integrating concept ofGreater China—but it's a start. Wüliam A. CaUahan University of Durham, United Kingdom William A. Callahan is a lecturer in EastAsian International Relations in the Politics Department, and is working on a book titled Confucian Ideology and Greater China. Clarence F. Shangraw and Claudia Brown. A Chorus ofColors: Chinese Glassfrom ThreeAmerican Collections. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1996. 128 pp. 115 illustrations (100 in color), bibliography. Hardcover $40.00, isbn 0-295-97510-5. Paperback $25.00, isbn 0-295-97511-3. There are few subjects these days about which we can say diat there is not enough written. The global communications network is vast, and information abounds. Yet die subject ofChinese glass has been under-appreciated, under-collected, under -studied and under-published. In fhe past decade, a smaU number ofAmerican collectors, scholars, and museums have been filling that void in the West. A Chorus ofColors: Chinese Ghssfrom Three American Collectionsis just what its tide implies: a briUiant and captivating look at three major coUections ofChinese glass in America, sensitively illustrated in a dazzling rainbow ofcolors. What the tide does not teU die reader is that this is in fact a rare encyclopedic glimpse ofChinese glass. Unlike the earlier Chinese-glass exhibition catalogs prepared by museum curator Claudia Brown and her husband, die late Donald Rabiner, Clear 248 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1997 as Crystal, Red as Flame: Later Chinese Glass and Chinese Glass ofthe QingDynasty , 1644-1911: The Robert H. Clague Collection, which focused on glass of the later Ming and Qing dynasties, this exhibition and publication begins with splendid examples ofearly Chinese glass, including pieces attributed to the Warring States period (480-222 b.c.) and the Han dynasty (206 b.c.-a.d. 221). The book begins, logicaUy enough, widi a briefhistory ofdiese major collectors of glass: Emma and Barney Dagan, Dr. Alan Feen, and Walter and PhyUis Shorenstein. One must assume diat die shortness of the (oh-too-brief!) introduction ofthese coUectors by Clarence Shangraw is due to the fact that he assumes die reader wiU learn much more about the coUectors through an examination of their breathtaking collections. One expects that many readers wiU be left thirsting for more of the histories ofdiese coUections right at die beginning. The essay by the late art historian Donald Rabiner on "Chinese Glass and die West" wül be a treat for aU who were not fortunate enough to have heard its presentation at the International Symposium on Chinese Glass, organized by the China Institute in 1990. The original paper was revised by Claudia Brown for inclusion in this catalog. It is a fascinating essay, documenting the history ofthe establishment offhe imperial glasshouse in China, as weU as presenting surprising information on how some Jesuit priests who went to China were prepared for their mission. It would be best in this briefreview to not give away any endings, and leave the readers to explore the essay on their own. Even more enlightening is Donald Rabiner's account ofthe history of Chinese glass, from its earliest beginnings through its addition ofnew technology from Europe in the late seventeenth century, which allowed for the creation of the Chinese glass widi which most admirers...