Alternate Title
CIT / 中國圖像誌索引典
Category
Images
Institution
Victoria and Albert Museum
Access
open access
URL
https://chineseiconography.org
Description
The Chinese Iconography Thesaurus (CIT / 中國圖像誌索引典) is an open-access bilingual indexing standard and image archive for Chinese iconography, developed under the leadership of Hongxing Zhang (Senior Curator, Victoria and Albert Museum) and published by Brill. The database currently contains 17,419 terminology concepts drawn primarily from pre-1900 Chinese historical catalogue records — including Shiqu baoji and Midian zhulin — and 12,893 artworks covering paintings, sculpture, prints, book illustrations, ceramics, and other applied arts made in China from 700 to 1900 CE. The CIT addresses the longstanding problem of cataloguing Chinese art using Eurocentric classification systems by providing controlled vocabulary rooted in Chinese cultural specificity, supported by five major collections: the V&A, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Palace Museum (Taipei), Cleveland Museum of Art, and Harvard-Yenching Library.
Source List
ACLS Open Database Resource Guide
Tags
Art and Architecture Middle Period (220–1368) Late Imperial (1368–1912) Digital humanities
Last Modified
5/17/2026 12:20am