Petra ten-Doesschate Chu and Ning Ding, eds., Qing Encounters: Artistic Exchanges between China and the West, Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2015

Qing Encounters includes sixteen diverse, yet entwined, essays that demonstrate the scope of the research currently advancing in this field. As Jonathan Hay articulates in the foreword, “Qing” and “China” are not interchangeable terms—and neither are “the West” and eighteenth-century Europe synonymous entities—and his explication serves the reader well (vii-ix). Understanding what is meant by a Qing frame of reference (artistically, politically, economically) is essential when we read the volume’s essays. Also, the book chronologically centers itself on the reign of three emperors: Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong, spanning the period 1661 to 1796. In this sense, its focus is the eighteenth century rather than the duration of the Qing empire. However, this prevents the volume from becoming too sprawling or incoherent.