"As entertaining as it is scholarly, this collection of essays demonstrates that professional painters could amuse their clients with colorful imagery while employing the understated techniques of scholar amateurs. The authors explicate images of elegantl

"This is a much anticipated and well-coordinated volume on one of the most important categories of Chinese paintings and prints, namely narrative. It not only investigates works that have long been neglected but also presents new scholarship exploring the

"Following major images throughout hundreds of years, these finely argued essays illustrate the profound significance of historical and religious iconography to the Chinese for whom the response to a known story is immediate but is here explained in detai

Shane McCausland is Reader in the History of Art of China in the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, University of London. At the Chester Beatty Library between 2004 and 2009, he was Curator of the East Asian Collections and latterly Head of Collections. He holds a doctorate in Art History and East Asian Studies from Princeton University, and is the author of books and articles on Chinese and Japanese painting. His monograph entitled Zhao Mengfu Calligraphy and Painting for Khubilai's China was published by Hong Kong University Press in 2011. Yin Hwang is a PhD candidate and a Teaching Fellow in the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, University of London. Her doctoral research focuses on the depictions of war and natural disaster in the print and visual culture of the late Qing period. She has written articles on Chinese painting, printmaking, contemporary Asian art and the art market. She was managing editor of Orientations magazine from 2005 to 2009.