This stunning two-volume book is the long-awaited catalogue of the exquisite collection of Ch'ing (Qing) dynasty imperial textiles and costumes from the collection of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. This collection has a rich history. Approximately half of it belonged to the San Francisco attorney William E. Colby, who had amassed the collection throughout the opportunistic decades of the 1920's and 1930's, and was acquired by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts under the advice of Alfred Pillsbury. Now consisting of over 600 items, it is considered one of the finest and most comprehensive holdings of Ch'ing textiles outside of China.

Only a few works from the collection have been exhibited over the past six decades, including exhibitions at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1943 and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1945, both curated by Alan Priest. Not until 1977, the year in which the Asian Arts department of The Minneapolis Institute of arts was established, was the entire collection been systematically supplemented, researched, and catalogued.