The collections of the late Northern Song emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1125) were unprecedented in scale and comprehensiveness. Accumulating Culture is a highly readable, handsomely illustrated account of Huizong's quarter century of collecting, which culminated in the compilation of three catalogues that became standards for centuries thereafter. It is the first monographic treatment of the formation of his collection, its place in the imperial institution and culture of the period, and its eventual fate.

In the introduction, Patricia Buckley Ebrey notes that the English word “culture” has broader implications than the Chinese word wen, the core meaning of which is “text.” According to values embodied in texts, luxury goods that gave pleasure were suspect because they did not advance learning and morality. Collecting texts provided a justification for collecting bronzes with inscriptions, and then calligraphy and painting. After reading about the early Song precedents for collecting and surveying the political strains during the reform era, we learn of the enthusiasm for collecting among scholars and by Huizong himself. Chapters are then devoted to the management of the Palace Library and to the collections that were the focus of the catalogues: antiquities, calligraphy, and painting. Chapter 9 is a wrenching account of the year-long Jurchen harassment of Kaifeng and the dispersal of the collection. An epilogue reflects on Huizong and his only competitor in megacollecting, the Manchu Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–95). Appendices illustrate Huizong collector seals and provide lists of major extant pre-Song calligraphies and the most credible surviving painting.

Ebrey convincingly shows how Huizong functioned as a literatus in collecting calligraphy and painting, taking personal pleasure in his aesthetic pursuits. That the painting catalogue demonstrates “strong support for the relatively new theory of literati painting” is more problematic (p. 307). While clever expression through poetic imagery was valued, the support was selective: not all poetic metaphors were equally welcome. Ebrey gives the erroneous impression that ink-wash plum paintings were included with monochrome bamboo in the Painting Catalogue (p. 284). In the bird and flower chapters, forty-one titles contain “plum blossom,” mostly in combination with other plants, but there is no instance of “ink plum” (mo mei). Why does this matter? Painting a white or pastel blossom with dots of ink wash created a visual reversal—a silent comment on a world in which black and white are inverted (heibai diandao). Practiced since about 1095, this type of plum painting was excluded from the imperial catalogue, as were the monks Huaguang Zhongren and Juefan Huihong, who painted them in sympathy with Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, and other “heterodox” officials. In 1122, the ink-wash plum was given a benign interpretation that made it acceptable to the emperor.

Another innovation of literati painting overlooked in Ebrey's account is the wordplay used by Su Shi and his friends. Wang Shen's Misty River, Layered Peaks (Yanjiang diezhang 煙江疊嶂) was the focus of one such exchange. Ebrey translates the title as Rivers and Mountains in Mist, which obscures the connection to an elegantly simple line (“At times startled by layered peaks” 有時驚疊嶂) in Du Fu's Autumn Day in Kui Prefecture, the likely inspiration for the painting. The poem is a rare moment when Du Fu questions the importance of holding office, which complements Ebrey's description of Su Shi's mood in the late 1080s (p. 52). Moreover, the assertion that Huizong did not see any fundamental opposition between the court and men of letters (p. 309) is undermined by Ebrey's account of Huizong's aggressive censure of Yuanyou partisans early in his reign (pp. 60, 62–65) and the absence, as Ebrey notes, in the catalogues of any painting or calligraphy by Su Shi (or Huang Tingjian as well).

The book is a veritable encyclopedia of court collecting practices. Ebrey systematically presents a wealth of information, much of it new in English, on the process of acquisition, how the collections were organized, where they were housed, forgeries and their detection, the role of propitious omens, problems of pilfering, issues of inclusion and exclusion that foregrounded the court, catalogue authorship and how the catalogues amplified the collections' influence.

Does Ebrey's book change how we view Huizong and his collection? Because the dynasty was at peace when Huizong was acquiring objects and scrolls, it was impossible to imagine his reign ending in political disaster. Yet historians consistently blamed the Northern Song collapse on Huizong's self-indulgent enthusiasm for art and Daoism. One of Ebrey's achievements is reading against the grain of historical moralizing to assemble a largely sympathetic portrait of a talented, conscientious monarch. The Northern Song's fall, Ebrey contends, was attributable not to extravagant collecting but to a failed foreign policy. The detailed account of the end of the Northern Song is masterful, and the haphazardness of what has survived is sobering: just twenty-seven credible paintings out of almost 6,400 in the Xuanhe Painting Catalogue. For private scholars, collecting demonstrated wealth and cultivation. For the emperor, collecting defined and preserved inherited culture, and the co-opting of cultural pursuits that had recently assumed new prominence. This valuable study is recommended to anyone who is interested in patterns of collecting, inside or outside China.