THE CURATORS

Anne Wardwell and James C.Y. Watt

James Watt and Anne Wardwell are veteran members of the curatorial ranks at their respective museums. In addition to the day-to-day research involved in acquiring and caring for the works of art for which they are responsible, their preparation for the exhibition and book When Silk Was Gold has been exhaustive.

Most of the works in their show have come to light within the past decade and provide important new evidence for textile production, particularly during the 10th through 14th centuries. As one key component of their work, they traveled extensively in China for five weeks in 1996, including stops in Beijing, Harbin, Shenyang, Urumchi, Hohhot, Hangzhou, and Suzhou. They were permitted to examine and make technical analyses of rarely seen related examples in Chinese collections and to discuss their work with such leading textile historians and technicians as Zhao Feng, Wu Min, Chen Juan Juan, Gao Hanzu, and Tu Heng Xian. Their contacts included those involved in discoveries in the 1980s of the tombs of an eighteen-year-old Qidan princess who died in 1018 and her husband in Inner Mongolia, and of Prince Qi of the Jin empire and his consort in former Manchuria (tomb dated 1162). They also observed tapestry looms and drawlooms in action, and studied related works of art in other media.

The status of understanding of Chinese and Central Asian textiles today: Only recently has it become possible to recognize the textiles of the Jin dynasty (1115-1234); to distinguish unique technical characteristics of tapestry weaving in specific territories; to document the origins of silk-tapestry weaving in China; and to define a body of work created in the eastern Iranian world. As recently as a decade ago, known Sino-Tibetan art of the mid-13th to early 15th centuries was limited to bronzes, paintings, and illustrated manuscripts; it now includes magnificent hangings, garments, and thankas of embroidery and silk weaving.

James C.Y. Watt

James Watt (Qu Zhi-ren) was born in Hong Kong in 1936 and was given a classical Chinese education at home before attending school and Oxford University in England. Returning to Hong Kong in 1960, he studied with Professor Jeo Tsung-I at the University of Hong Kong for four years before taking up his first position at the (then) Hong Kong City Museum and Art Gallery. Watt went on to work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1971-80), where he was Curator of the Art Museum and taught art history. Since coming to the United States in 1981, he has been Curator of Asiatic Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1981-85) and Senior Curator in the Department of Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is now the Brooke Russell Astor Senior Curator for Chinese decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum and is an adjunct professor of fine arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Watt has published widely on various topics in Chinese art. His major works have been exhibition catalogues based on original research. Most recently, he has co-authored East Asian Lacquer: The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection and contributed five essays to Possessing the Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Anne E. Wardwell

Anne Wardwell has been a member of CMA's curatorial staff for thirty years. She became curator of textiles at the museum in 1982, after having served as assistant curator and associate curator of textiles beginning in 1967. She holds an M.A. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and a B.A. from Sweet Briar College. Early silk weaving, particularly textiles of the Mongol period, is her area of specialty. She has lectured widely and published numerous articles including "Gilded Kesi Boots of the Liao Dynasty (907-1125 AD)" in the Bulletin de Liaison du Centre International d'Étude des Textiles Anciens and "Panni Tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Woven With Gold and Silver (13th and 14th Centuries)" in Islamic Art III. Wardwell's research for this exhibition has involved several trips to study the collections of Central Asian and Chinese textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum and The British Museum, London, the Musée Guimet in Paris, and the Indian Museum in Berlin, and to study a collection of Liao textiles in the Abegg Stiftung in Riggisberg, Switzerland. While in China, she visited collections with textiles related to those in the exhibition and had the opportunity to examine extraordinary Liao, Jin, Song, and Yuan textiles with a microscope.

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