Zhang Han (Ming Dynasty)

Zhang Han (1511–1593) was a leading scholar-official during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) of China. Although eventually posted to serve in the capital at Beijing, Zhang was a native of the thriving commercial city of Hangzhou and a descendent of a wealthy family that ran a textile business.^[1] He was also a literary author, a painter, a follower of Chinese Buddhism, and an essayist while in retirement from office during his later years. According to the historian Timothy Brook, he was a "close observer of the changes of his age", in reference to China's intensified commercialism and consumption of commodities in the late Ming era and its effects upon Chinese culture.^[1]

Notes

References

• Brook, Timothy. (1998). The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22154-0