Jessica Lucy Kilgour Harrison-Hall FSA (; born 1965) is a British art historian,

sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

, curator and author. She is currently Head of the China section, Curator of Chinese Ceramics and Decorative Arts at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

and is also Curator of the Sir

Percival David Sir Percival Victor David Ezekiel David, 2nd Baronet (21 July 1892 – 9 October 1964) was a Bombay-born British financier who is best known as a scholar and collector of Chinese ceramics. His collection of Chinese ceramics in the Percival D ...

Collection at the British Museum. She researches, lectures and writes about Chinese history and its global connections through visual and material culture.

Biography

Harrison-Hall has an MA in Chinese and Fine Art from

Edinburgh University The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the town council under the authority of a royal charter from King James VI in 1582 and offi ...

(1987, including a year at the Chinese Language Department of

University of Shandong Shandong University (; SDU) is a public university in Jinan, Shandong, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. The oldest of ...

Jinan Jinan is the capital of the province of Shandong in East China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is one of the largest cities in Shandong in terms of population. The area of present-day Jinan has played an important role in the history of ...

1984–1985). In 1991, Harrison-Hall joined the British Museum as a project curator for

Jessica Rawson Dame Jessica Mary Rawson, (born 20 January 1943) is an English art historian, curator and sinologist, specialising in Chinese art. She is also an academic administrator. After many years at the British Museum, she was Warden (head) of Merton C ...

in the Department of Oriental Antiquities (now department of Asia). She became Curator of Chinese Ceramics in 1994, curator of the Sir Percival David Collection in 2006, and Head of the China Section in 2015. She was President of the Oriental Ceramics Society from 2015 to 2018. She is the recipient of two major Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) awards: "Ming Courts and Contacts 1400-1450" project (with (

Craig Clunas Alistair Craig Clunas (born 1 December 1954) is Professor Emeritus of History of Art at the University of Oxford. As a historian of the art and history of China, Clunas has focused particularly on the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Life Clunas atten ...

) (2012) and "Cultural Creativity in Qing China 1796-1912" (with

Julia Lovell Julia Lovell (born 1975) is a British scholar, author, and translator whose non-fiction books focus on China. Lovell is professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Her works on the Opium Wars (''The Opi ...

) (2020) She is married to the writer and film maker Martin Keady with whom she has three children.

Exhibitions and galleries

* 2023 - "China's Hidden Century, 1796-1912" at the British Museum * 2017 - The Sir

Joseph Hotung Sir Joseph Edward Hotung (25 May 1930 – 16 December 2021) was a British/Hong Kong businessman, art collector, and philanthropist. Biography Hotung was born in 1930 in Shanghai to Edward Hotung, a founder of the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchang ...

Gallery of China and South Asia * 1994 - "Ancient Chinese Trade Ceramics" staged at the National History Museum in Taipei. * 2014 - "Ming: Fifty Years that Changed China" * 2009-2012 - "China: Journey to the East" - a travelling exhibition, working with seven UK museums (Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery; The Herbert, Coventry, Willis Museum, Basingstoke; Museum and Winter Gardens, Sunderland; York City Gallery; Manchester Museum; Sheffield Museums Weston Park., accompanied by Harrison-Hall's children book ''Pocket Timeline of China'' (2007) * 2000 - "Vietnam: Behind the Lines: Images of War 1965-75" - the first exhibition in the West to examine Northern Vietnamese artists work from the American-Vietnam war.

Awards and honours

* 2017 Book Prize Specialist Publication Accolade - Awarded by the International Convention of Asia Scholars for (eds.) ''Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400-1450'', jointly edited with

, Jessica Harrison-Hall and Yu-ping Luk (2016). The book was described by the judges as 'An outstanding connective history in pursuit of China's historical difference’

Selected publications

* ''China's 1800s: Material and Visual Culture'' (2024) ISBN 978-0861592418 (edited volume) * ''China's Hidden Century: 1796-1912'' (2023) ISBN 978-0714124933 (co-edited with

) * ''Creators of Modern China: 100 Lives from Empire to Republic 1796–1912'' (2023) ISBN 978-0500480809 (co-edited with

) * ''China: A History in Objects'', Thames and Hudson, London, 2017. . Italian and Portuguese translations (2018); Chinese (Taiwan), Chinese (China), Korean translations (2019-2020) * ''Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400-1450'' (2016) (Co edited with Craig Clunas and Yu-ping Luk) * ''Ming: 50 years that changed China'', British Museum Publications, London, 2014 (Co edited with Craig Clunas) * ''Ming: Art, People and Places'', British Museum Publications, London, 2014. * ''Passion for Porcelain: Masterpieces of Ceramics from the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum'', (co-authors Luisa Mengoni, Hilary Williams, Aileen Dawson), National Museum of China, Beijing, (2012) Lu Zhangshen (ed.) (Chinese and English) * ''Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection'', (co-author Regina Krahl), London, 2009 (translated into Chinese) * ''Vietnam: Behind the Lines - Images from the War 1965-75'', British Museum Publications, London, 2002. . * ''Ming Ceramics - A Catalogue of the late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum'', British Museum Publications, London, 2001. . Translated as ''Catalogue of Ming Ceramics in the British Museum. Volumes 1 and 2 / 大英博物館藏中國明代陶瓷'', Beijing 2014

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison-Hall, Jessica 1965 births Living people Employees of the British Museum British sinologists British art historians Historians of East Asian art British women art historians Alumni of the University of Edinburgh British curators Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London