Synopses & Reviews
The collections of The Cleveland Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, boast extensive and important holdings of Central Asian and Chinese textiles dating from the 8th through the 15th century. This beautiful book accompanies a joint exhibition of more than 60 of these fragile and luxurious objects, many of which have never before been published, opening in Cleveland on October 19, 1997, and in New York on March 3, 1998.
Each of the visually striking tapestries, silks, embroideries, and printed textiles in the exhibition is reproduced in full color, including those made by peoples living in the borderlands of China, those produced in imperial workshops and traded along the Silk Road, and those created for Buddhist monasteries. Essays provide original scholarship on the social, economic, political, and religious contexts in which these precious textiles were created, and individual entries offer descriptions and technical analysis. When Silk Was Gold offers a unique opportunity to examine the most coveted clothing and furnishings used in ancient Asian cultures.