Hong Kong Palace Museum | Hong Kong Palace Museum Symposium "Crossing Boundaries: China-France Cultural Exchanges in the 17th and 18th Centuries"

Guo Fuxiang

Research Fellow
The Palace Museum

Guo Fuxiang has dedicated his career to the preservation, display, and research of court artefacts. His research interests lie in the history of Chinese clocks and watches, the history of the court’s collection of clocks and watches, imperial seals of emperors and empresses, Sino-Western cultural exchanges, the history of jade artefacts, and court life during the Qianlong period. He has spearheaded the curation and exhibition for the Kulangsu Gallery of Foreign Artefacts from the Palace Museum Collection, and has curated notable exhibitions such as “Beyond Boundaries: Cartier and The Palace Museum Craftsmanship and Restoration Exhibition” and “The Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles: Exchanges between China and France in the 17th and 18th Centuries”. Guo has authored several monographs, including Imperial Seals of Emperors and Empresses in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chinese Emperors and Foreigners, The Historical Images of Time: Essays on the History of Chinese Clocks and Watches, and Research on Manas Jasper in Qianlong’s Court Collection. He has also published a few dozens of scholarly essays.

Yao Ting

Associate Research Fellow
The Palace Museum

Yao Ting is the Associate Research Fellow of the Court History Department at the Palace Museum. Her primary responsibilities include the preservation, exhibition, and research of clocks, foreign artefacts, and medical equipment, along with medicinal materials. Her research expertise spans the study of Qing dynasty clocks, the medical practices of the imperial court, the historical cultural exchanges between China and the West, and more.

Wang Wenxin

Associate Curator
Hong Kong Palace Museum

Wang Wenxin holds a Ph.D. in Chinese art history from Leiden University, the Netherlands. She previously worked at Leiden University’s Institute for Area Studies, the Palace Museum, and the Overseas Chinese History Museum of China in Beijing, where she was involved in academic research, curation, catalogue publishing, and more. Her research focuses on art history and book history during the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as cultural exchanges between East and West from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.

Wang Wenxin is the co-curator of the special exhibition “The Forbidden City and The Palace of Versailles: China-France Cultural Encounters in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” at the Hong Kong Palace Museum.

Han Qi

Professor
Department of Chinese History and Culture
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Han Qi is a leading scholar in the history of Chinese science, Sino-Western cultural exchanges, and Catholicism in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. He has served as researcher (level 2), distinguished researcher, and deputy director of the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and leading professor at the School of History, Zhejiang University. He is an elected corresponding member of the International Academy of History of Sciences.

He has published Western Spread of Chinese Science and Technology and Its Influence (1582–1793) and Studies up to heaven: The Spread of Jesuits and Astronomy in China (which won the Book Award of the 11th International Conference of Asian Studies Scholars, Honorary Mention Award), and Kangxi Emperor · Jesuit · Science Spread. He co-edited The Collection of Chongzheng in Xi Dynasty and The Final Case of the Xi Dynasty (external three kinds), Compilation of Yongzheng and Qianlong Catholic Documents in Europe, The Complete Collection of Mei Wending, among other works, and has published over 100 academic papers. He was the editor-in-chief of Studies in the History of Natural Sciences. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Annals of Science, and Historia Scientiarum.

Marie-Laure de Rochebrune

Honorary General Curator
The Palace of Versailles

After receiving a master’s history degree from the Sorbonne University and a master’s degree from the École du Louvre in Paris, Marie-Laure de Rochebrune passed the Heritage Curator exam in 1995. She then joined the French National Institute of Cultural Heritage for 18 months. Upon leaving the institute in September 1997, she was appointed Curator in the Department of Decorative Arts at the Louvre Museum. After departing from the Louvre Museum in 2010, she joined the Palace of Versailles, where she was named Honorary General Curator upon her retirement at the close of last year. At the Palace of Versailles, she expertly managed and conducted research on the exquisite collections of European and Chinese ceramics, as well as the Petit Trianon.

Marie-Laure de Rochebrune is the co-curator of the special exhibition “The Forbidden City and The Palace of Versailles: China-France Cultural Encounters in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” at the Hong Kong Palace Museum.

Wang Lianming

Associate Professor
Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong

Wang Lianming has held positions at the University of Würzburg, Heidelberg University, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, the University of Cambridge, and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. Heidelberg University awarded him the Hengstberger Prize in 2018 for excellent research. His latest volume, Jesuitenerbe in Peking: Sakralbauten und transkulturelle Räume, 1600–1800 recieved the Academy Prize in 2021 from the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften and an honourable mention for the ICAS Book Prize 2021 (German Language Edition). His research interests centre on global encounters in art and architecture during early modernity, object and diplomatic gift exchanges, East Asian maritime exchange, and Qing court art.