May 7, 2014
The throne was there [in China], and the Emperor of China sat on it. Now it is here [in the Victoria & Albert Museum], and you the visitor view it. Do not ask how it got here, or where it was from 1770 to now; that does not matter. You are here to engage with ‘China,’ not with ‘Britain,’ so do not ask what the presence of the throne of the emperor of China might tell you about ‘Britain,’ and its narratives about ‘China’ over the two centuries since the thing was made.
Craig Clunas, “Oriental Antiquities/Far Eastern Art.” Positions 2, no. 2 (1994): 318–319.
