By examining the Wu family’s connection with the origin of zisha teapots, this study investigates how Ming literati used material culture to shape family reputation. It unravels the complicated relationship between Ming dynasty literati and the craft products they appreciated. The paper analyzes Ming and Qing dynasty texts discussing the origins of zisha ware as well as material evidence. This study found that the authors of these texts were all connected to the Wu family. This family had success in imperial examinations but wanted to raise their social profile further via their involvement in tea and teaware production and connoisseurship. Their association with the invention of teaware — a story spread via publications by relatives and friends — conveyed the Wu family’s artistic taste. Thus, texts praising tea and tea paraphernalia as well as the exchange of tea gifts became tools for actively creating material culture and establishing influence in literati circles.

Welcome to our 84th volume.Our first article is Yuanfei Wang’s “What Hangs on a Hairpin: Inalienable Possession and Language Exchange in Two Marriage Romances” which compares Jiang Fang’s (792–835)...

Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political Change in Late Yuan China, Studies in Oriental Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in ...

We, the current editors of Ming Studies, would like to acknowledge the importance of the historical movement currently underway with the protests for social justice that have rung across the United...

The phenomenon of the rise of merchants in late imperial China has been well examined in many studies, in which Confucian literati are shown to have made various adaptations to the new social reality. Wang Yangming’s (1472–1529) School of Mind-Heart in particular, incorporated this development into its philosophical worldview so that the Confucian sagehood was deemed to be within the reach of merchants. However, the opposing Cheng-Zhu School of Principle has hitherto escaped focused investigation. This paper seeks to fill the lacuna by studying the writings of a Cheng-Zhu partisan, Li Guangjin (1549–1623), whose generous reappraisal of the merchants extended to the female agents as well. His obsession with scholarly pedigree and his belief in the efficacy of the transformative power of Confucian culture indicated that he never perceived the merchants as true merchants, but as scholars in disguise. He was daring to criticize and rework the authoritative writings of Sima Qian on money-makers for his own evaluation of men and women in trade. But his patriarchal views and support of the state cult of chastity nonetheless underscored his identity as an orthodox Cheng-Zhu Confucian.