February 15, 2011 — The University of Virginia Art Museum will host Julia Curtis for an Ellen Bayard Weedon Lecture in the Arts of Asia on March 3. Her lecture, "A New Aesthetic for a Manchu Emperor: Kangxi Porcelain from Jingdezhen, 1661-1722," will be held at 5:30 p.m. in Campbell Hall, room 153.
 
Curtis' lecture will explore porcelain made in Jingdezhen between 1661 and 1722, when political, economic and technological changes combined to produce some of the most vigorous but refined porcelains ever manufactured in China. The Ming dynasty (1368-1644) is often noted for its porcelain, and for the literati, or scholarly vision, that dominated the arts for the majority of the period. Beginning in the 1680s, the literati were subsumed by a new aesthetic based on imperial taste.

Curtis has served as North American representative of the Oriental Ceramic Society, London, for more than 20 years. She earned a B.A. from Vassar, and a master's and doctorate in history from Bryn Mawr College. She lectures and writes on 17th-century Chinese porcelains and iconography. She has taught at University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Old Dominion University and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York.

She has organized two exhibitions of Chinese porcelain produced during two periods of the 17th century, authored two exhibition catalogs, and co-authored a third for a 2002 exhibition at the U.Va. Art Museum, "Treasures from an Unknown Reign: Shunzhi Porcelain, 1644-1661."

The Weedon Lectures are made possible by support from the Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For information, call 434-243-2050 or e-mail.