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Close up photograph of part of the Norman Arch, which was the entrances to the North Hall

Tullia Fraser FSAScot  

Assistant Curator (Huang Kam Chak Yee Collection), Oriental Museum  

Telephone: +44(0)191 3345701 

Email tullia.fraser@durham.ac.uk 

Overview   

Tullia Fraser is the Assistant Curator appointed towards the research and display of the Huang Kam Chak Yee Collection. She is committed to promoting Mrs Huang’s collection to students, researchers, and the public. A special exhibition, permanent display, and bilingual catalogue of the Collection are forthcoming in 2026 and 2027 respectively. Tullia’s research also focuses on the provenance of Chinese objects in Britain, Chinese lacquerware and furniture. 

Biography

Tullia holds a BA (Hons) Archaeology and MA Museum and Artefact Studies from Durham University. She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, National Museums Scotland, and Durham University, investigating the histories and provenances of Scotland’s Chinese Collections (1862–1946) with object-led approaches. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 

Tullia’s career began with both unpaid and paid roles in the Durham County Record Office, Oriental Museum, and Royal Collection Trust. Her role at Liang Yi Museum (Hong Kong) included provenance research into its collection of Chinese furniture. As part of her tenure at the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong, she curated an exhibition on European Gothic art, digitised key objects in UMAG’s permanent Chinese collections, and supported teaching and supervision. She also led a project team on documenting the museum’s substantial holdings of ‘orphaned’ archaeological finds, identifying the group as one of the earliest archaeological collections in Hong Kong. She has also translated and edited exhibition catalogues on Chinese art for various museums in the city. 

While pursuing her doctorate, Tullia undertook teaching duties at the History of Art department at the University of Glasgow, focusing on Chinese art and Chinese art collecting in Scotland. In 2022, she was also a Doctoral Training Partnership Fellow in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Based in the Asia Department and Research Institute (VARINALA), she researched and published the provenance data of over 43,000 East Asian objects the museum acquired between 1852–1911. Her work at the V&A also highlighted the lesser-known dealers from whom the museum purchased East Asian objects. She further undertook a six-month placement at the Oriental Museum in 2024, where she conducted collections-based research, and a secondment research project of Chinese lacquer furniture in Raby Castle. She also assisted in the refreshed permanent display of ceramics in the Malcolm MacDonald Gallery of China, such as developing a display on fakes and forgeries in changing Chinese traditions. She has shared her research widely through articles, papers and workshops given to organisations such as the Scottish Museum Federation, National Trust for Scotland, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. 

Research interests

  • Provenance research into Chinese material culture
  • Chinese lacquerware, furniture and associated crafts
  • History of antiquarianism and archaeology in Hong Kong
  • Museums and collections histories
  • Colonial legacies in museums  

Selected Publications

Books 

Knothe, F. & Tullia C. Fraser. High Gothic: Christian Art and Iconography of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century (哥德盛世: 十三至十四世紀的基督宗教藝術與圖像). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2021. 

Articles 

Fraser, Tullia C., Agnes P.Y. Sung and Benjamin Chiesa. “Connected Fragments: An Early Hong Kong Archaeological Collection”. Journal of the History of Collections 37, no. 1, (2025): 117-133. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhae025  

Conference Papers 

Fraser, Tullia C. 'Collecting and Transforming Chinese Lacquer in Scotland in the Early Twentieth Century'. Paper, The 2025 Annual Conference for the Association for Art History, York, UK, 10 April 2025. 

Fraser, Tullia C. 'Changing with the Times: An Astronomical Clock in the Oriental Museum, Durham University'. Paper, Grand Yaji Gathering, Communicating Time and Culture Project, Science Museum, 30 May 2024. 

Fraser, Tullia C. 'Contrasting? Methodologies towards Provenance Research into East Asian Objects'. Paper, The Provenance of Asian Art: Symposium and Workshop, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation’s Museum of Asian Art and Central Archives, Washington DC, 2 November 2023. 

Talks and Workshops 

Fraser, Tullia C. 'Booked and Busy—Syncretic Methodologies Towards Provenance Research into East Asian Objects'. Public talk, V&A Provenance Research Seminar Series, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 6 June 2023. 

Fraser, Tullia C. 'Exploring Entwined Histories through Chinese Material Culture in Scottish Museums'. Workshop, Scottish Museums Federation Conference 2023: Seeing the Bigger Picture, Glasgow, 15 May 2023. 

Blog Posts 

Fraser, Tullia C., ‘Dealing and Dealers: The East Asia Collection’, Victoria & Albert Museum, 2023. Available at: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/dealing-and-dealers-the-east-asia-collection/  

Fraser, Tullia C., ‘Searching for Dealers in the V&A’s East Asia Collection’, Victoria & Albert Museum, 2023. Available at: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/projects/searching-for-dealers-in-the-vas-east-asia-collection