In ancient China, mirrors were more than just reflective surfaces. They were decorative artifacts that showcased a range of fine patterns and designs, reaching a broad audience beyond the elite. They also exerted a strong impact on early design more broadly, particularly in the way that the decorative motifs that adorned their reverse sides were structured within banded spaces. Although bronze mirrors have been an important focal point in Chinese and Japanese scholarship, only article-length treatments of this subject exist in English. Bronze Mirrors in Ancient China: Artistry and Technique by Kin Sum Li, therefore, stands as the first full-length scholarly monograph on early mirrors.

Li’s book does not aim to be a comprehensive study of mirror iconography or typologies. Instead, its primary focus is mass production: specifically, the processes by which numerous mirrors acquired identical components or were fully replicated during the period of 500–200 BCE. The book’s most significant contribution to the field is the author’s brilliant uncovering of the multiple-transfer method in the second chapter. The other chapters mostly play a supplementary role.

The first chapter, titled “Mirror Design with Freehand Working Methods,” presents an overview of mirrors from two distinct eras: 1800–500 BCE and 500–200 BCE. The discussion of mirrors produced from 1800–500 BCE is fairly terse, primarily reiterating basic facts from existing scholarship explaining the emergence of the earliest mirrors, their fundamental features, the steps involved in producing them from decorated bivalve molds, and their alloy composition. The most significant takeaway from this section is the observation that decoration on mirrors produced in the early period was consistently carved on the mold rather than the model, despite the technique of carving on the model having already been fully developed and established by bronze vessel manufacturers at the time (23).

The remainder of this chapter focuses on mirrors produced from 500–200 BCE from the middle Yangzi River region (Hunan and Hubei provinces). In this section, Li explains his rationale for selecting this body of mirrors as a case study: they are well-preserved and excavated in abundance from clear archaeological contexts. He then presents an overview of the major changes in mirror production during this period: artisans began creating decorated mirror models rather than solely carving on molds. They also introduced painted and inlaid mirrors, as well as mirrors with a double-tier structure. Furthermore, effects such as three-dimensional, layered decoration against finely-textured background patterns were introduced.

Following the first chapter, the second chapter focuses on reconstructing what the author refers to as “the multiple transfer method” of mirror production. This technique is essentially a more complicated version of the pattern block method. First, a background model is created by making several molds from a single rectangular design unit (for example, a feather-and-curl background pattern). These identical rectangular molds are then lined up and combined to form a pad mold. From this pad mold, a model is created, which can be trimmed on a circular plate and combined with a rim to form the complete background model. The main motifs of the mirror (such as large, slanting T-shapes) are subsequently produced as models (from molds made from a component model) and applied to the background model to create the full model of the mirror, which he refers to as the “décor model.”

Li meticulously examines every component of the mirror, from the background granules to the rim, to provide evidence for his theory of how each was replicated and recombined. His analysis incorporates not only visual descriptions but also numerous close-up images to illuminate the connections between designs. He also superimposes photographs to conclusively establish the relationships between seemingly identical mirrors.

The third and final chapter investigates two principal patterns discussed in the book: the feather-and-curl pattern and the slanting-T pattern. It analyzes the spread of mirrors with these two patterns across East Asia and identifies their potential precedents, including designs on bronze objects, lacquerware, textiles, and additional artifacts. The chapter explores how artisans diversified mirrors by applying various combinations of backgrounds, rims, and central motifs. Lastly, it identifies the origins of key motifs on mirrors from the middle Yangzi River region, encompassing slanting-T and V motifs, narrative, serpent, and vegetal designs.

The introduction and conclusion frame Li’s reconstruction of the highly technical process behind creating identical mirrors. Li asserts that his detailed descriptions of these processes aim to challenge the contemporary assumption that “individual freedom is diminished in grand-scale industrial production as a direct result of the division of labor and streamlined production” (3). He presents several arguments to counter this assumption, some of which echo points previously made by Lothar Ledderose in Ten Thousand Things (Princeton University Press, 2000). Li argues that all reproduction, even in nature, necessitates duplication; replication itself is not uncreative. Instead, it demands a high degree of creativity to devise new production methods that enhance efficiency and quality (4–5). The creation of a modular system, he contends, opened possibilities for wider collaboration because, in theory, interchangeable components could be transferred between factories (180).

Li’s forceful contention regarding the creativity of early Chinese bronze mirror art is important and necessary. However, his arguments do not entirely succeed because he mistakenly characterizes the assumption that he confronts as a modern one rather than a cultural one. Abundant modern Chinese and Japanese scholarship on bronze mirrors has not upheld a prevailing view of such works as uncreative. Rather, the perception of modularly-produced art as curtailing artists’ creativity and individual freedom represents a Western cultural bias, extending back to Hegel and linked to a Western obsession with uniqueness and originality, as well as to deep-seated stereotypes of East Asia as imitative and uncreative. Against this type of bias, merely showcasing the perfection of Chinese manufacturing processes will likely prove insufficient; it may even inadvertently reinforce the bias (as does comparing iPhones to bronze mirrors). Instead, as Lothar von Falkenhausen previously noted in his review of Ledderose’s book, explicit comparisons between premodern European and Chinese art are necessary to address these assumptions directly.

A further limitation of this study is that it does not consider how bronze mirror production techniques emerged alongside the casting of other genres of bronzes. In the author’s account, there often appears to have been a significant time lag before mirror artisans began to utilize techniques already used to produce other bronze objects. For example, why did mirror artisans of the early period only carve on the mold when vessel designers were regularly decorating models? Similarly, vessels with paint applied freehand appear by the early Western Zhou period (ca. 1046–771 BCE) in the Central Plains and even earlier at Sanxingdui. Is the late emergence of painted mirrors just a matter of preservation or are there other contextual factors that can account for the late adaptation of many techniques to the mirror genre?

A final issue with this study concerns its images. For a technical study of this nature, clear visuals are essential. Yet, in several instances, the author relies solely on visual description to convey an object’s appearance. One notable example is the discussion of a Freer double-tier mirror, which occupies nearly half a page, yet no image of the object is provided (35). This consistent problem made arguments, particularly those concerning connections between bronze mirror and lacquer designs, difficult to follow. For general accessibility, it also would have been beneficial had the author included a diagram or flow chart succinctly illustrating the multiple transfer method.

As anthropologist Tim Ingold has shown, production is a path that begins with an intent to go somewhere but often involves a journey that leads somewhere else. Considerable creativity is involved in devising new ways to achieve artistic ends. This monograph puts these artistic processes under the microscope, revealing how artisans, in negotiating various unpredictable factors during the design process, discovered new methods of production and ultimately accelerated innovation in the Eastern Zhou dynasty (ca. 770–256 BCE), thereby creating a stunning diversity of mirror designs.