Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature - Hardcover

Shuxia Chen; Min-Jung Kim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0909952248 ISBN 13: 9780909952242

Publisher: Power Publications (Australia), 2024

Synopsis

This book introduces the understudied cultural artifact of the Chinese belt toggle, known as zhuizi. Similar to their better-known Japanese counterparts netsuke, these small carved ornaments offer a rare glimpse into everyday life in early modern China. Toggles were a feature of traditional Chinese garments from the 17th century but were scarcely collected. A collaboration between the Powerhouse Museum and Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, this publication reveals one of the world's largest collections of these extraordinary objects. More than personal accessories, toggles were wearable symbols, embodying Chinese folk traditions and cultural beliefs. Today, they can speak to 300 years of Chinese culture across various levels of society. These intricately carved miniatures display the finesse of traditional craft skills through a broad range of materials from jade, ivory and amber to wood, glass and seeds. Coinciding with an exhibition of the same title at the University of Sydney's Chau Chak Wing Museum, Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature, combines curatorial and scientific analysis of the objects' histories and materials by art historians, archaeologists, scientists, and curators. Edited by the exhibition's curators, this book allows a larger audience to engage with these unique objects, pairing academic enquiry with detailed photographic documentation of both the exhibition itself, and the catalogue of 80 toggles.

About this title

About the Author

Shuxia Chen is a lecturer at the University of New South Wales School of Art & Design. She was the inaugural curator of the China Gallery and East Asian Collections at the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Min-Jung Kim is curator of Asian arts at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum), Sydney.

Edition details

• Publisher: Power Publications (Australia)
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0909952248
• ISBN 13: 9780909952242
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256