LibGuides: History of Pre-Modern China: Primary Sources: Material Culture

Primary Sources via Library Resources

The Tufts libraries provide access to a wide array of primary source materials on the material culture of China. Explore these resources to find images, descriptions, texts, and much more on this topic.

ARTstor
ARTstor is an image database of architecture, painting, photography, sculpture, decorative arts and design, and archaeological and anthropological objects--with associated catalog data--from many major collections. Users are able to register themselves via the tools in the ARTstor Library. Faculty who want the higher level of access that allows them to create folders to share Image Groups with students or colleagues need to upgrade their user accounts by selecting Instructor Privileges Manager from the Tools toolbar menu. When registering for Instructor Privileges, users will be prompted to obtain the required authorization code and password, available from the Tisch reference desk at 617-627-3460.
Artifact
Image study website of the Tufts Department of Art & Art History.

Trove
Image study website of the Tufts Department of Art & Art History.

Primary Sources: Online Collections

There is an increasing amount of digitized primary source materials available on the web from libraries, museums, educational institutions, and more. Explore these resources to find texts, images, and much more on this topic.

Asian Art Museum (San Francisco)
Browse the online collections or used "Advanced Search" to search by time period or other keywords.
British Museum Images
One of the oldest, largest and famous museums in the world, the British Museum Images holds over 6,000 images in its database, including a wealth of images of Chinese art and other materials.
Chinese Art section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrun Timeline of Art History
The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History is a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. Within the Chinese Art area are thematic essays on many aspects of Chinese art, history, and culture. The essays also incorporate images.
Digital Public Library of America
U.S. project aimed at providing public access to digital holdings (maps, manuscripts, monographs) as a public digital library.
Europeana
The site offers a collection of many leading European digital images and resources including over a million objects about China and beyond. You may want to search in pinying or simplified hanzi. Researchers can discover digital images of paintings, relics, photos, prints and other various video and audio clips of Europe’s rich heritage and interactions with Asia.
Lian Huan Hua Collection, Asia Collection
Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa: Lian Huan Hua literarlly means "linked serial pictures." They are pocket sized picture-story books first published by a Shanghai publisher in the 1920s. The Library has collected more than 150 titles of lian huan hua that were published mostly during the Cultural Revolution, particularly between 1971-1976, when the publication of lian huan hua was rare and difficult at that time.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
One of the largest digital collections in the world, the site is suitable for anyone seeking images as primary sources reflecting Chinese, Chinese-American, Asian, or Asian-American histories.
The National Palace Museum Digital Archives
Provided by the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, this site contains a variety of image and text databases; many covering biographical studies, historical archives, digital images of relics and paintings from Taiwan and China.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
The Digital Collection provides free and open access to over 800,000 images from the Library’s collections. These digital images include photographs, posters, documents, maps, manuscripts and other source materials in many academic fields. These resources can cover China and other countries in Asia as well.
Online Museum Resources on Asian Art
Hosted by Columbia University, this site is a Gateway to museum sites, specifically online exhibitions, according to subject area or topic, time period, country/region, and religion.
Princeton University Online Catalog of Shadow Figures
The Princeton University East Asian Library has just released a fully searchable, image-rich, free online catalog of its collection of Chinese shadow figures. The catalog includes photographs of each of the over 2,000 items in the collection, along with searchable categories and descriptions.
Smithsonian Collections Search Center
"The Smithsonian Collections Search Center is an online catalog containing most of Smithsonian's major collections from our museums, archives, libraries, and research units. There are 8.1 million catalog records relating to areas for Art & Design,History & Culture, and Science & Technology with 860,477 images, videos, audio files, podcasts, blog posts and electronic journals."
Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home
Yin Yu Tang, a late Qing dynasty merchants' house, was originally located in southeastern China. Re-erected at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, Yin Yu Tang is now open to visitors. Explore the house in person or online to discover this rare example of the region's renowned architecture and to learn about the daily life of the Huang family, who lived in Yin Yu Tang for over 200 years. The online display includes high-quality images of a wide array of objects owned by this family over the years.