Build A Great Library
One Book At A Time
Finding the right Chinese art reference books as well as Japanese and related objects about Asian art is essential to further gain understanding in your collecting journey.
"When in doubt, buy a book"
Today there are literally tens of thousands of books covering the entire range of Asian art. The problem is and has been for many years authors and publishers too often try to do the impossible by covering too much and too many areas all in one volume. During the last 40 years, we've learned the BEST and MOST useful books are:
1. Focused on a specific period of time or dynasty. 2. Are Profusely Illustrated. 3. And are devoted to discussing how objects were created from specific materials i.e. Bronze, Porcelain-Pottery, Jade-Hardstones, Paintings, Furniture, Silks-Textiles, etc.
NOTE: MANY books on the market today are NOT listed below as they offer little useful information, and in some cases are pretty inaccurate and or contain outdated scholarship.
NOTE: Be SURE to check the LANGUAGE version you are selecting.
a few books we suggest you might like.
To search AMAZON yourself, CLICK HERE
Amazon.com
$113.37
Chinese Rank Badges: Symbols of Power, Wealth, and Intellect in the Ming and Qing Dynasties
-31%
Amazon.com
$167.11
$245.00
Leaping the Dragon Gate: The Sir Michael Butler Collection of Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain
-64%
Amazon.com
$19.80
$55.00
Chinese Export Porcelain for the American Trade, 1785-1835 (Winterthur Series)
Amazon.com
$120.00
PRIMEPRIME
Jingdezhen to the World: The Lurie Collection of Chinese Export Porcelain from the Late Ming Dynasty
Amazon.com
$179.00
Treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics: From the Peabody Essex Museum
Amazon.com
$135.70
MING: Porcelain for a Globalised Trade
Amazon.com
$52.00
Ming Porcelain
Amazon.com
$90.00
Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Family Collection.
-15%
Amazon.com
$50.94
$60.00
Treasures from an Unknown Reign: Shunzhi Porcelain
Amazon.com
$258.00
The Wanli Shipwreck and Its Ceramic Cargo
Amazon.com
$125.00
Chinese Silks (The Culture & Civilization of China)
-62%
Amazon.com
$15.04
$39.95
Chinese Silk: A Cultural History
-28%
Amazon.com
$35.80
$50.00
Imperial Chinese Robes: From the Forbidden City
-12%
Amazon.com
$21.77
$24.95
Chinese Export Art and Design
Amazon.com
$24.95
PRIMEPRIME
Chinese Export Porcelain from the Liebman Collection
Amazon.com
$29.51
PRIMEPRIME
How to Read Chinese Ceramics (The Metropolitan Museum of Art - How to Read)
Amazon.com
$143.37
Merchants of Canton and Macao: Success and Failure in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade
Amazon.com
$19.94
Chinese jades in the Avery Brundage Collection: A selection of religious symbols, insignia of rank, ceremonial weapons, pendants, ornaments, ... from the...
Amazon.com
$63.86
Illustrated Catalogue of Underglaze Blue & Copper Red Decorated Porcelains in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art.
-89%
Amazon.com
$30.41
$299.00
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art: A guide to the collection
Amazon.com
$27.90
Imperial Taste - Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation
Amazon.com
$45.00
For the Imperial Court: Qing Porcelain from the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art
Amazon.com
$20.00
Illustrated Catalogue of Ch'ing Enamelled Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art. Section 2.
Amazon.com
$1,080.99
Chinese Copper Red Wares (Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art: Monograph Series)
Amazon.com
$136.82
Qing Enamelled Wares (Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art: Illustrated Catalogues)
Amazon.com
$71.59
Designs as signs: Decoration and Chinese ceramics: Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art
Amazon.com
$155.00
Oriental Ceramics, Vol. 6: The World's Great Collections - Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art
Amazon.com
$296.56
Qingbai Ware
Amazon.com
$8.75
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art: Illustrated Guide to the Collection
Amazon.com
$495.00
Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition)
-30%
Amazon.com
$41.81
$60.00
Collecting Chinese and Japanese Porcelain in Pre-Revolutionary Paris
Amazon.com
$225.64
PRIMEPRIME
Early Chinese Blue-and-White Porcelain: The Mingzhitang Collection of Sir Joseph Hotung
Amazon.com
$28.94
Later Chinese porcelain: The Ch'ing dynasty, 1644-1912,
Amazon.com
$99.00
PRIMEPRIME
Allen's Authentication of Later Chinese Porcelain (1796 AD - 1999 AD)
Amazon.com
$99.00
PRIMEPRIME
Allen's Introduction to Later Chinese Porcelain
-74%
Amazon.com
$25.59
$100.00
Later Chinese Porcelain; The Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1912)
Amazon.com
$42.21
Chinese Pottery and Porcelain. From Prehistory to the Present
-73%
Amazon.com
$16.20
$60.00
Chinese Export Porcelain in North America
Amazon.com
$44.00
PRIMEPRIME
Portuguese Intervention in the Manila Galleon Trade: The structure and networks of trade between Asia and America in the 16th and 17th centuries as revealed...
Amazon.com
$89.00
Chinese Export Porcelain: From the Museum of Anastacio Goncalves, Lisbon
Amazon.com
$17.95
Chinese Export Porcelain: Chine de commande
-53%
Amazon.com
$30.00
$65.00
Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection at Washington and Lee University
-55%
Amazon.com
$17.90
$40.00
Earth Transformed: Chinese Ceramics In The Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston
-30%
Amazon.com
$39.38
$57.00
Straits Chinese Porcelain: A Collector's Guide
-76%
Amazon.com
$21.33
$89.50
The Decorative Arts of the China Trade: Paintings, Furnishings and Exotic Curiosities
Amazon.com
$7.01
The China Trade: Export Paintings, Furniture, Silver and Other Objects
Amazon.com
$51.46
Giuseppe Castiglione,: A Jesuit Painter at the Court of the Chinese Emperors
-44%
Amazon.com
$12.40
$22.50
Chinese Trade Porcelain
Amazon.com
$165.00
The Edward T. Chow Collection, Part 2; Early Chinese Ceramics and Ancient Bronzes (Part 2)
Amazon.com
$44.95
A Connoisseur's Guide to Chinese Ceramics
-53%
Amazon.com
$18.77
$40.00
Chinese Collector Through the Centuries
Amazon.com
$1,250.00
The Edward T. Chow Collection, 3 Volume Set -- Part One: Ming and Qing Porcelain; Part Two: Early Chinese Ceramics and Ancients Bronzes; Part Three: Ming and...
Amazon.com
$125.00
Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain Around the World
Amazon.com
$247.99
Blanc de Chine: The Great Porcelain of Dehua
Amazon.com
$43.49
Blanc d'étoiles. Porcelaines de Dehua, des Ming aux Qing
Amazon.com
$52.00
Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911 (Far Eastern Series)
Amazon.com
$159.33
Later Chinese Bronzes
Amazon.com
$143.91
Chinese Ivory Carvings: The Sir Victor Sassoon Collection
-14%
Amazon.com
$60.00
$70.00
Sung Porcelain and Stoneware (Faber Monographs on Pottery and Porcelain)
Amazon.com
$98.88
Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars' Motifs and Narratives
-20%
Amazon.com
$15.82
$19.95
In Pursuit of the Dragon: Traditions and Transitions in Ming Ceramics
Amazon.com
$299.99
The Baur Collection, Geneva: Chinese Jades and Other Hardstones
-74%
Amazon.com
$49.95
$199.00
The Baur Collection Geneva
Amazon.com
$750.00
Baur Collection Geneva: Chinese Ceramics, Monochrome-Glazed Porcelains of Ch'ing Dynasty, Vol. 3
-67%
Amazon.com
$64.25
$199.00
The Baur Collection Geneva
-48%
Amazon.com
$77.50
$150.00
Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Baur Collection (English and French Edition)
Amazon.com
$399.85
Kraak Porcelain - A Moment in the History of Trade
-16%
Amazon.com
$125.00
$150.00
Qing Porcelain
-7%
Amazon.com
$62.82
$68.00
Ethereal Elegance: Porcelain Vases of the Imperial Qing - The Huaihaitang Collection
-76%
Amazon.com
$18.92
$80.00
Mounted Oriental Porcelain in the J. Paul Getty Museum
Amazon.com
$75.95
Early Ming wares of Chingtechen,
Amazon.com
$92.50
Song Dynasty Ceramics (Victoria & Albert Museum Far Eastern)
Amazon.com
$45.00
Heaven and Earth Seen Within: Song Ceramics from the Robert Barron Collection
Amazon.com
$24.62
Chinese bronzes
Amazon.com
$228.45
Ancient Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections: Shang Ritual Bronzes (Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections)
Amazon.com
$29.95
PRIMEPRIME
How to Read Chinese Paintings (The Metropolitan Museum of Art - How to Read)
Amazon.com
$60.38
PRIMEPRIME
Philadelphians and the China Trade: 1784-1840 (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Amazon.com
$116.44
Porcelain of the High Qing: The Brian S. McElney Collection
Amazon.com
$37.00
Chinese Jades from the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum
Amazon.com
$560.00
Later Chinese Jades: Ming Dynasty to Early Twentieth Century
Amazon.com
$57.60
PRIMEPRIME
Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums
-12%
Amazon.com
$69.96
$80.00
Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing
-5%
Amazon.com
$51.85
$55.00
Chinese Jades (Victoria & Albert Museum Far Eastern Series)
Amazon.com
$93.83
The Jade Studio: Masterpieces of Ming and Qing Painting and Calligraphy from the Wong Nan-Ping Collection
Amazon.com
$225.00
Chinese Archaic Jades and Bronzes From the Estate of Professor Max Loehr and Others
Amazon.com
$323.95
Chinese Archaic Jades from the Kwan Collection
-29%
Amazon.com
$35.49
$50.00
PRIMEPRIME
Cultivated Stones: Chinese Scholars' Rocks from the Kemin Hu Collection
Amazon.com
$181.01
Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks
-36%
Amazon.com
$60.51
$95.00
PRIMEPRIME
Spirit Stones: The Ancient Art of the Scholar's Rock
Amazon.com
$120.00
Scholars' Rocks In Ancient China: The Suyuan Stone Catalogue
Amazon.com
$30.00
PRIMEPRIME
Art of the Iron Brush: Bamboo Carvings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Distributed for HKU Museum and Art Gallery)
Amazon.com
$25.00
Rugs and Carpets from Central Asia: The Russian Collections (English and Russian Edition)
Amazon.com
$68.62
Tribal Rugs: Nomadic and Village Weavings from the Near East and Central Asia
Amazon.com
$55.00
The Turkoman Carpet
-64%
Amazon.com
$26.67
$75.00
Tribal Rugs: A Complete Guide to Nomadic and Village Carpets
Amazon.com
$45.14
Chinese and exotic rugs
Amazon.com
$31.95
PRIMEPRIME
Catalogue of Extraordinary Antique Chinese and Japanese Art Objects and a Remarkable Collection of Antique Chinese Rugs: Collected by the Well-known Firm of...
Amazon.com
$117.79
Turkmen Carpets: The Neville Kingston Collection (Central Asian Textiles)
Amazon.com
$49.95
Azerbaijani-Caucasian Rugs
Amazon.com
$108.00
Caucasian rugs: A detailed presentation of the art of carpet weaving in the various districts of the Caucasus during the 18th and 19th century
Amazon.com
$110.13
Caucasian Carpets and Covers: The Weaving Culture
Amazon.com
$135.00
Caucasian Carpets
-26%
Amazon.com
$33.20
$45.00
Goryeo Dynasty: Korea's Age of Enlightenment, 918-1392