Anthony J. Barbieri-Low’s book is more far-reaching than its title initially suggests. It is not just about the artisans of early imperial China (the Qin and Han dynasties), but as he explains in his introduction/first chapter: “Understanding these lives [of the artisans] and the complex social, commercial and technological networks in which they participated will allow us to humanize the material remains of the past” (17). In the following five chapters, Barbieri-Low examines artisans in the following contexts: society, the workshop, the marketplace, at court, and in irons (the slave). His thorough and meticulously documented exploration of the milieu in which artisans labored makes a significant contribution that will be useful to all scholars and students of Chinese studies. His basic tools are references in received texts, inscriptions on objects, archaeological sites, and a close study of objects themselves.

Some of the most important archaeological materials that Barbieri-Low draws upon are documents recovered from tombs, and among the most significant are those from the tomb belonging to an official of the Qin Empire in the Shuihudi area of Yunmeng County, in Hubei province, along with those from a tomb of a local official who lived during the Western Han dynasty, unearthed at Zhangjiashan, Jiangling, Hubei. Of equal interest as sources are the inscriptions brushed or etched into the surfaces of objects. Recognition of the value of this type of evidence is seen in the 2007 publication of a compilation of inscriptions preserved on bronze objects, Handai tongqi mingwen xuan shi, and studies of those inscriptions, Handai tongqi mingwen zonghe yanjiu, edited by Xu Zhengkao (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe). In the first chapter Barbieri-Low illustrates his working method with an inclusion of case studies, such as an inscribed gilt bronze lamp from the tomb of the Dou Wan, consort of the Han king, Liu Sheng, at Mancheng, Hebei. In this example as well as his discussion of clay figures from the mausoleum site of the first Emperor of Qin, the author recaptures the context of the artisans who made these objects.

In chapter 2 (“Artisans in Society”), Barbieri-Low provides a broad discussion (delving into pre-imperial China) of the term “artisan” and of the artisan’s economic role and social status in relation to other members of society. He describes the “idealized artisan” who, the author writes, “was a person who did not really exist, except as a kind of Platonic mental construct in the mind of the philosopher, the poet, or the historian” (44). This section is interesting in a general sense, but it moves away from the author’s stated goal of understanding the real artisan. Other sections are more “humanizing” as he explains that one can gather basic information about the literacy of the master of an artisan work crew in an imperial workshop by the fact that he was required to inscribe his name, work unit, and year of manufacture on the object. Yet in the context of the private workshop, evidence is far more limited since only occasionally would the master inscribe a name, an auspicious slogan, or other information.

Chapter 3 (“Artisans in the Workshop”) includes Barbieri-Low’s extremely interesting analyses of imperial lacquer workshops and of stone carving workshops far from the capital, specifically the carvers of funerary monuments at Jiaxiang in Shandong province. In both cases, he provides a clear sense of the entire process of working with lacquer or stone. In this chapter he also looks into the labor environment, particularly the dangers that artisans faced, including the explosion of a furnace, mercury poisoning for those involved in gilding or silvering, and toxicity of lacquer fluid. He connects the last ailment to the medical text, Fifty-two Recipes to Cure Diseases [Wushier bingfang], excavated from tomb three at Mawangdui. The cure for this skin problem caused by the Lacquer King involves the use of an image of the lacquer king. This is a splendid example of the author’s incorporation of excavated texts to fill in specific details concerning the lives of artisans who crafted the lacquer wares found in so many Han dynasty tombs. Elsewhere the author tries to recapture the presence of women in the workshop. Here his evidence is more sparse—for instance, he cites a reference in the Han shu to a mother who supported her son by making sandals, received and excavated texts noting the fact that female artisans worked in textile mills, or the recovery of women’s signatures on lacquer ware—which confirms the difficult task of reconstructing the context for some groups of artisans of the early imperial period. Another way of getting closer to the artisan in the workshop could have been a discussion of excavated tool kits like one found in excellent condition in a Western Han tomb at Tianchang in Anhui province.

In chapter 4 (“The Marketplace”), Barbieri-Low provides a thorough background of the commercial context, including markets within and outside the capital, the status of merchants, taxation, and marketing and trading systems. In his section on marketing techniques, he discusses a workshop that added an inscription to an object claiming that it was made at the Western Workshop of Shu Commandery known for its imperial wares. This “knockoff” offered the buyer label prestige but not necessarily the imperial level of craftsmanship. Barbieri-Low also notes the use of standard auspicious phrases on goods like bronze mirrors. He believes the inscriptions might be viewed like jingles that led the consumer to purchase a particular object rather than another. He reaches a compelling conclusion in linking such practices with the decline of state control over production during the latter Han.

His chapter 5 (“Artisans at Court”) is divided into two parts. The first is a discussion of the types of visual and material culture (“art”) at court and the roles and purposes of such works. He considers paintings of exemplars, imperially bestowed paintings, ritual paintings of deities, illustrations of battle accounts, palace decoration, and furnishing. I found his discussion of the palace furnishings to most clearly relate to the stated goal of getting closer to the real artisan because there are many extant inscribed objects available for study, which makes it unnecessary to rely on descriptions in texts, post-Han examples, or tomb reliefs that may not be related to objects made for palaces. In the second part of chapter 5, Barbieri-Low turns his attention to professional artisans employed by the court and to the amateur scholar-official artisan in the emperor’s service. Here his evidence is less compelling, as for example when he refers to legendary artisans or people who “seem” to have been in one of the categories of professional artisan.

Chapter 6 (“Artisan in Irons”) covers the conscripted and convict artisan. This chapter is an interesting discussion of conscript/convict labor in general brought up to date through the author’s expert citation of statutes recovered from tombs. In some instances in this chapter, Barbieri-Low’s analysis conveys a clear sense of the human behind the object, for example in Qin times when women convict laborers with embroidery skills were not allowed to have their sentences redeemed by substitution of family members. But for the most part in this section, the author’s focus moves away from objects and also the people who created them to the broader context pertaining to the social and economic conditions surrounding unfree laborers.

In the epilogue, the author again urges readers when viewing Qin and Han objects (lacquer vessels, stone tomb reliefs, bronze mirrors, Ordos-style plaques, calligraphy on a stele, or iron tools) to remember the human presence that can be recaptured through signatures, inscriptions, and received and excavated texts. Barbieri-Low encourages us to ask not only about the original uses of objects, but more specifically about the artisans who made them. What was their status in society? How were they trained? How did they make the objects? And how were these objects transferred into the hands of the owner? It should be noted that in a few instances evidence is so limited that Barbieri-Low uses qualifiers like “probably,” “perhaps,” “seems,” “possible,” and “appears” to such a degree that the reader feels unsure about his conclusions. For instance in his chapter on lacquer workshops, the author notices differences in skill in rendering motifs on a lacquer platter dating to the late Han or post-Han period (70). He proposes that these inconsistencies in execution are the result of a “collaborative effort” between a master painter and his apprentices. Although this might have been the case, other scenarios can be imagined as well. Another minor drawback is the author’s citation of post-Han texts and material culture (even as late as the Ming and Qing dynasties) as support for his conclusions when Han evidence is lacking. Despite these minor criticisms, Barbieri-Low’s book is extremely successful in explicating the social and economic conditions around laborers during China’s early imperial period.