Fragment of Song Brocade

The Archives of Suzhou Silk from Modern and Contemporary Times.

Fragment of Song Brocade with two phoenixes around a dragon on a beige swastika from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

The Archives of Suzhou Silk from Modern and Contemporary Times cover the technical research, production management, trading and marketing, and the foreign exchange of many Suzhou silk enterprises and organizations from the 19th-20th centuries. These Archives reflect the change of Chinese silk industry from the traditional workshop to industrial production as well as the export target preferences and the East-West trade exchanges and culture changes of more than a century. The historical and international significance of the archives echoes with the current exchanges between countries along the route of “Belt and Road” initiative.