Book competition

This week’s competition prize is Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer: China and Japan and their trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500–1644 (Paul Holberton Publishing; £75). Click here for your chance to win.

Focusing on the prolific trade, transport and consumption of Chinese silk and porcelain and Japanese lacquer between 1500 and 1644, this groundbreaking book shows how the material cultures of late Ming China and Momoyama/Early Edo Japan on one side of the globe, and Western Europe and the New World on the other, became linked for the first time, through an exchange of luxury Asian manufactured goods for currency (silver). It offers new insight into these long-distance commercial networks, which resulted in an unprecedented creation of material culture that reflected influences of both East and West.

For your chance to win simply answer the following question and submit your details here before midday on 31 March.

Q: Which Portuguese explorer first brought Chinese porcelain back to Europe?

For our last competition prize we offered Rogues Gallery: A History of Art and its Dealers, published by Profile Books (£20.00). The question was:

Picasso’s most famous set of etchings is named after which French art dealer?

Answer: Ambroise Vollard

Congratulations to the winner: Cerys John