Chen Chao-Jung, Associate Research Fellow of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica

Full-surface bronze rubbing is a special craft with its origins in the middle 19th century. Through a combination of sketching, painting, rubbing and paper cutting, this technique brings out three dimensional bronze carvings and figurations on flat rubbing paper. The art of full-surface bronze rubbing requires delicate technique and a lot of time. Since the advent of photography, this art has become rare and precious due to the difficulty of passing the skill down. More than two thousand full-surface bronze rubbings are in the collection of the Fu Ssu-Nien Library of the Institute of History and Philology. ....