Chiara Gasparini, History of Art and Architecture, and 2024–25 OHC Faculty Research Fellow.

Recent archaeological excavations in the western regions of China have brought to light textiles and artworks from 6th–9th-century Tuyuhun-Tibetan tombs, which suggest artistic and cultural exchanges along an external southern branch of the main Silk Road through the Himalayas. Through a comparative analysis of textual, material, and visual sources, in this book, I discussthe acquisition and evolution of foreign artistic models in the making of the early Tibetan Empire and the variations of Chinese aesthetics in different cultural areas.