The Night Banquet

"The reader is led on a journey viewing the way the painting survived, was enjoyed, and analyzed over the centuries. These historical and literary arguments are compelling. . . . detailed and insightful . . ."—Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky, China Review International, Vol. 18:1, 2011

"The following chapters almost read like a 'detective' story. The book is a real page turner, as it gives the reader a broad impression of how the painting has been appreciated by different viewers and owners over a long stretch of time."—Lucien van Valen, IIAS Newsletter, Spring 2012

"Lee's commentary brings both the banquet itself back to life and all those who have taken a peek at the proceedings since that long-ago dynasty."—Bob Duggan, The BigThink, June 2011

"[This book] is the first book-length study in English devoted to this painting in its entirety, from the frontispiece to all of the colophons and seals. . . . The Night Banquet is a well-researched and sensibly structured work. Lee successfully merges several subfields of Chinese art history–visual analysis, colleting history, and connoisseurship–under the rubric of “cultural life.”"—An-Yi Pan, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 95, No. 1

"Lee has been immensely successful in her quest to uncover the history and changing significance of the Han Xizai scroll, detailing what a spectrum of career officials, connoisseurs, collectors, and emperors had to say about it-sometimes disapproving of the subject matter as licentious and immoral, sometimes considering it a vehicle for comment on current political situations. A masterful study, rooted in extensive original research, rich in detail and interpretation, The Night Banquet is a major contribution to the study of Chinese painting and to Chinese culture in general."—Ellen Johnston Laing, University of Michigan