Dame Jessica Mary Rawson, DBE,FBA (born 20 January 1943) is an English art historian, curator and sinologist. She is also an academic administrator, specialising in Chinese art.
Between 1976 and 1994, she served as Deputy Keeper and then Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum. From 1994 to 2010 she was Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and from 2006 to 2011 she served as pro-vice-chancellor of Oxford University. She has been involved in a number of high-profile exhibitions such as the Mysteries of Ancient China.[3]
From 2011 to 2016, Rawson headed a project at the University of Oxford on China and Inner Asia: Interactions Which Changed China (1000-200 BC) funded by the Leverhulme Trust, with Jianjun Mei as collaborator. This project explored relations between Ancient China and peoples of the Eurasian Steppes, particularly to the north and north-west.[6] As of 2015, Rawson was also listed as a project partner on the RLAHA project FLow of Ancient Metals across Eurasia (FLAME) funded by the European Research Council.[7]
In May 2017 she was awarded the Charles Lang Freer Medal in recognition of her lifetime's contribution to the study of Chinese art and archaeology.[10] In 2022 she received the Tang Prize in Sinology.[11]
Personal life
Rawson does not allow students to call her by first name, but instead instructs them to call her "President" or "Professor Rawson."
Chinese pots 7th-13th century AD (1977) London: British Museum Publications.
Ancient China, art and archaeology (1980) London: British Museum Publications.
The Chinese Bronzes of Yunnan (1983) London and Beijing: Sidgwick and Jackson.
Chinese ornament: The lotus and the dragon (1984) London: British Museum Publications
Chinese bronzes: Art and ritual (1987) London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum in association with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia.
Chinese jade from the Neolithic to the Qing (1995) London: British Museum Press.
Mysteries of Ancient China (1996) London: British Museum Press.
China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795 (2005) London: Royal Academy of Arts.
The British Museum Book of Chinese Art (2 ed.). British Museum Press. 2007.
"Miniature Bronzes from Western Zhou tombs at Baoji in Shaanxi Province". Radiance between Bronzes and Jades—Archaeology, Art and Culture of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. 2013. pp. 23–66.
"Ordering the exotic: ritual practices in the Late Western and Early Eastern Zhou". Artibus Asiae. 73 (1): 5–76. 2013.