Ming Wilson is a writer on Chinese art and history
Ming Wilson was formerly Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for twenty four years. She has organised exhibitions and written books on a wide range of subjects in Chinese art, including ceramics, jade, paintings for the Western market, and imperial robes.
She has a particular interest in using primary Chinese source material in her research. That specialisation has enabled her to identify diplomatic gifts given to King George III by Emperor Qianlong in 1793.
Ming's new book
Many books have been written about Sino-British trade before the Opium War of 1839, but hardly any of them draws on contemporary Chinese source material.
The primary Chinese source material do exist. The Guangdong state officials, called ‘mandarins’ by Westerners, wrote memorials to the Emperor about the foreign trade in Guangzhou (Canton) and Macao. The memorials were then filed away in the Forbidden City.
After the collapse of the Qing dynasty, and the last Emperor Puyi having been driven out of the Forbidden City, the Palace Museum was established in 1925. From that year onwards the memorials become available to the general public slowly but surely.
MONEY MATTERS is written to introduce those Chinese memorials to an English readership.
