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Dr. CHEN Yi

Independent scholar
Academic author, Dresden Porcelain Project of the Porzellansammlung, Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden)

Fellowship Project

Dr. Yi Chen plans to spend 8 months at the Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (香港中文大學文物館), to conduct research on the structure and application of a bilingual ceramic thesaurus for digital collection database. Dr. Chen will also contribute to catalogue publication, and participate in collection research and TMS data management.

Biography

Dr. Yi Chen is currently an academic author of the Dresden Porcelain Project of the Porzellansammlung, Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and was formerly curator of Early China at the British Museum. Before she joined the British Museum, she was the Christensen Fellow in Chinese painting at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Dr. Yi Chen received her PhD on Chinese archaeology from the University of Oxford.

Recent Development and Achievement

    Dr. Yi Chen was one of the lead curators on the renovation of the permanent Gallery of China of the British Museum, overseeing the Early China section. She is currently working on the Dresden Porcelain Project, which aims to offer a complete overview of the former Royal Porcelain Collection of ca. 8000 East Asian Porcelain objects in relation to the unpublished original 18th century inventories through a web-based catalogue which allows bilingual searches, for the use and reference of professionals and interested individuals worldwide.

Selected Publication(s)

  • Chen, Y. (to be published in 2022). ‘Platters with Teeth and Ewers Lifted from One Side: New Vessel Forms and Foodways in Tang China (AD 618—907),’ book chapter in Stacy Pearson (ed.), Sipping tea under the willow tree: Visual, Material and Textual Cultures of Food and Drink in China, 200 BCE – 1900 CE, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Co-author with Q. Wang and D. Tamburini (2020). ‘Was lacquer the key ingredient for luxurious jinyin pingtuo products in Tang China (AD 618-907)?’ Archaeometry 62, 3: 646–659.
  • Co-author & translator (2019). Vocabulary (Chinese terms) under the international project The CAST: ING run by Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of France and the Getty.
  • Co-author with Q. Wang and R. Su (2019). ‘Houma Bronzes in The British Museum: A Technical Study’, Orientations, 50/6: 2-21.
  • Chen, Y. (2018). ‘You are what you eat – cooking pots as ritual objects in ancient China’, Arts of Asia, 48/6: 50-58.
  • Chen, Y. (2017). ‘Between the mobile and the settled: Rediscovering steppe objects showing interregional contacts essential to China,’ Arts of Asia, 47/6: 50-57.
  • Co-author with S. Vainker (2015). Fang Zhaoling (1914-2006): A Centenary Exhibition. Exhibition catalogue. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.
  • Co-translator with W. Zhao and W. Wen (2014), Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum. Beijing: The Forbidden City Press.