This all- day workshop will be held on Monday 13 October 2025 at the NTU London Confetti campus in Whitechapel, E1, and focuses on the evidence of traditional Chinese painting materials and techniques which has been obtained using scientific analysis.

It is aimed at all those interested in East Asian painting materials and techniques, and curators who have East Asian paintings in their collections.

Detailed Description

The workshop will include a summary of NTU’s recent international Research Project From Lima to Canton and Beyond which studies historical global trade and exchange through the lens of paintings which circulated between the Americas, Asia and Europe ca. 1780-1850.

The workshop will also include analysis of paint boxes, contemporary painting treatises and a comparison with Japanese paintings materials. The study of these traditional painting materials and techniques serves as a baseline to compare with the “export paintings” from around the world which were analysed in the project.

Speakers include Dr Blythe McCarthy from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art, US, and Professor Haida Liang, Head of the ISAAC Lab at NTU. There will be a demonstration of Chinese painting techniques by Dr Xiangjie Wang from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.