FERGUSON, John Calvin.

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Survey of Chinese Art. First edition, first printing, rarely found with the jacket, of this historical study by John Calvin Ferguson, a leading connoisseur of Chinese antiquities and one of the doyens of Chinese art history. "From the encounters between China and the West in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, John Ferguson reaped a harvest for himself and others that can only be described as exceptional" (Netting, p. 12).The ten extensively illustrated chapters address the major categories of Chinese artwork including bronzes, stone monuments, calligraphy, painting, jades, ceramics, architecture, furniture, textiles, and what Ferguson calls "miscellaneous" pieces. Born in 1866, Ferguson travelled to China at the age of 21 to work as a missionary and quickly became well-known for his command of the Chinese language. Under the patronage of the Qing dynasty official Sheng Xuanhuai, he became president of Shanghai's Nanyang Public School and advisor to the Ministry of Posts and Communications, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Imperial Chinese Railway Administration. In 1899, Ferguson bought Xinwenbao, a small Shanghai newspaper, and transformed it into one of the most important publications in the country.By the fall of the Qing in 1911, Ferguson was a leading western authority on Chinese art, having developed a connoisseur's eye under the guidance of the Chinese collector Duanfang. In 1912, he was appointed to the committee charged with cataloguing the treasures of th

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