The Empire’s New Cloth

Cross-Cultural Textiles at the Qing Court: a lecture by Mei Mei Rado

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall

gallery@bgc.bard.edu

$15 General | $12 Seniors | Free for people associated with a college or university, people with museum ID, people with disabilities and caregivers, and BGC members

In the early modern period, luxury textiles circulated globally as trade goods and diplomatic gifts, fostering cultural exchange between distant regions. By the eighteenth century, both China and Europe had developed a splendid tradition of silk and tapestry weaving. In her new book, The Empire’s New Cloth, Mei Mei Rado explores how Qing court workshops adapted European textile designs and techniques and uncovers the specific uses and meanings of these textiles in imperial military ceremonies, religious spaces, and palace interiors. While the role of Chinese silk imports in Europe has been well studied, this book reconstructs the forgotten history of the eastward movement of European textiles to China and their integration into the arts and culture of the Qing Empire.

Dr. Mei Mei Rado received her MA from the University of Chicago and her PhD from Bard Graduate Center, New York, where she is currently an assistant professor. Her research and teaching focus on the history of textiles, dress, and decorative arts in China and France from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, especially on Sino-French exchanges. From 2020 to 2022 she was associate curator of costume and textiles at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and previously she has held research fellowships in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the Department of Court Arts at the Palace Museum, Beijing. She is working on two new book projects—one on fashion in modern China and the other on the rococo style at the Qing court.