Berliner Schlachtenkupfer / Berlin Battle Engravings

The publication presents the entire collection of printing plates depicting battles of the Chinese emperor that are still in existence. They show scenes of Chinese military campaigns between 755 and 828. Of the originally eighty-eight printing plates, only thirty-seven are still known today, thirty-four of them in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. The book tells the history of the plates'provenance and describes the history of copperplate engraving in China. The process in which the printing plates were created and the motifs found in the pictures of battles are also explained. The magnificent copper plates, which are part of the exhibition in the Wang Shu Room of the Humboldt Forum, bear witness to the history of missionaries in China, the military campaigns and politics of the Chinese emperor, the transnational interrelation of culture and craft, and ultimately the craft of copperplate engraving itself.