Michael St. Clair's The Great Chinese Art Transfer: How So Much of China's Art Came to America documents the unprecedented removal of art and antiquities from China in the late 19th to early 20th century, and the flow of this material to dealers, collectors and museums in the US. With China's economic, political and social upheaval at the end of the Qing dynasty, huge quantities of artefacts were transferred to richer countries in the West. Indeed, the Chinese Culture Relics Society estimates that more than ten million objects have left China since the middle of the 19th century. This vast removal was made possible both by the obvious huge differential in wealth between China and the US and the relative ease with which Westerners could acquire such material at this time. When China dissolved into chaos at the end of the Qing period, many impoverished elite families, desperate for cash, were forced to sell works of art. As St. Clair argues, such an enormous exodus of a country's art is never likely to be repeated. In the US, art collections proliferated in the late 19th century, reflecting the new wealth, especially in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston. The book identifies the networks of (mainly Western) collectors, dealers and scholars in China, as well as the curators in US museums, and explains how these institutions acquired their considerable Chinese collections.

The Great Chinese Art Transfer begins by discussing the American trade with China in the 18th century, the Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860), early collecting, curiosities and international exhibitions in Europe in the 19th century. The following chapter explores China's tradition of collecting. Government official and connoisseur, Duanfang (1861–1911), for example, owned one of the great personal collections of Chinese art. After his death, his objects were sold off, and much went to American museums, especially the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Chapter three discusses the formation and dispersal of parts of China's imperial art collection – the looting of the “Old Summer Palace” (Yuanmingyuan) at the end of the Second Opium War in 1860, and the further looting during the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901), as well as the sale of material after the fall of the Qing dynasty in the early 20th century. The following chapter moves on to explore the world of curio and antiquities shops in Beijing and Canton which foreigners frequented. Chapter five surveys early pioneers of collecting in China – Isaac Taylor Headland, Samuel Wells Williams, Chester Holcombe and John C. Ferguson. The following chapters focus on porcelain collections in Europe, and the role of international dealers, such as Yamanaka, CT Loo, Tonying Company, Duveen and Gorer. Chapter eight turns to the Boston Orientalists and their connections with Japan in the late 19th century, while Chapter nine examines more Westerners who collected Chinese porcelain – Charles Wyllys Elliott, Samuel Putnam Avery, William Walters, Stephen Bushell, Mary Morgan and Charles A Dana. This is followed by a discussion of the increase in the pace of collecting during America's “Gilded Age,” the end of 19th century. The collecting “giants” are then discussed – the Huntingtons, Garland, and, of course, the great connoisseur of paintings, Charles Lang Freer. The latter, who made a fortune from railway carriages, retired aged 45 – and it was during trips to Asia between 1894 and 1910 that he developed his contacts and connoisseurship, with a clear intention to leave his extraordinary collection to the American nation. The accelerating growth of collections of Chinese art in the 1930s is documented in the following chapter, with entries devoted to many of the main American museums, while the final chapter touches upon forgeries, fakes and (briefly) the repatriation of Chinese art.

Drawing primarily on secondary sources and collection catalogues, the book comprises an engaging overview of collections formed largely by Americans during this extraordinary period. It is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to discover more about key individuals, identifying as it does the sheer number of people collecting Chinese material, and providing almost dictionary-like entries. The focus is not entirely on China and America, however, for some sections cover Japan, and, in places, discussions stray into European and British collectors (the Scottish botanist, Robert Fortune, is erroneously labelled as “English”). In places, more judicious editing would have been beneficial, as several long quotations are repeated in different parts of the book. With the phrase “came to America” in its title, the publication seems to be intended for an American audience. It will, nevertheless, be relevant for students of Chinese studies, museum studies, history, art history, as well as curators, collectors and dealers – and, indeed, anyone interested more generally in Chinese art and collecting.