Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan [ 响堂山石窟项目 ]

Chicago and Washington, D.C.: Smart Museum of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2010. Near Fine. Chicago and Washington, D.C.: Smart Museum of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2010. First Edition. Quarto (30.5x23x2cm); 271pp, including map, chronology, glossary, and bibliography. Color photographs, B&W historical images, and computer recreations on nearly every page. Photographic card wrappers with generous French flaps. Entirely in English.

Volume shows only the slightest surface signs of shelving. Card spine uncreased and uncracked. Textblock unmarred and unmarked.

A bifold program (somewhat frumpled) from the symposium marking the opening of the exhibit in Washington, D.C., is laid in.

The caves of Xiangtangshan housed important and elaborate Buddhist shrines during the Northern Qi dynasty (550-577 CE)-subjected, alas, to plunder ever since. This catalog of the exhibit shown at the Sackler Gallery 26 February to 31 July 2011 has abundant photos of the caves as they are now. They are accompanied by digital recreations of vandalized elements visually replaced in situ. Most of the pilfered elements are now dispersed throughout the world, including into the collection of Charles Freer in Washington, D.C., where this exhibit implicitly constituted a mea-or, rather, nostra-culpa.