The World’s Fair in Vienna of 1873 was the largest and most ambitious of the early World’s Fairs. The organisers went out of their way to include states that had been underrepresented in London and Paris. They succeeded in attracting a range of countries from northern Africa and especially Asia for the first time.
China was among the countries that had their first formal presentation at the international exhibition. The Chinese pavilion became the most comprehensive show products of Chinese nature, industry and art until then. As it came at a time when museums across Europe began establishing East Asian collections, it arguably shaped the European understanding of Chinese material culture of the late 19th century. The pavilion proved consequential in China as well as it set the blueprint for China’s participation in World’s Fairs for decades to come. During the talk we will trace the process of how the show came into being, characterise its displays, and discuss the impact it had on the field of art history both in Europe and in China.