Wikidata:WikiProject PCC Wikidata Pilot/Smithsonian Libraries/Projects/Chinese Portraits
Aim and Scope
editThe aim of this project is to create, augment and review for accuracy Wikidata items for names matched to the Freer and Sackler Galleries collection of Chinese Ancestors portraits. These names represent important historical figures in modern Chinese history, mainly from the Qing Dynasty. This project will also include creation of items for the creators of the portraits and the paintings themselves. The Wikidata items created as part of this project will eventually be uploaded to the Smithsonian's Wikibase. There are 90 portrait paintings in the collection.
Project Page: WikiProject PCC Wikidata Pilot/Smithsonian Libraries Chinese Ancestor Portraits (Q107077160)
Background
editTimeline
edit- Spring/Summer 2020 - Recruit and train team members
- Fall 2020 - Evaluate core/extended properties for describing sitter of the portraits. Begin editing Wikidata items for sitters
- January-June 2021 - Complete research on all identifiable individuals in the portrait collection and edit or create item records
- July-August 2021 - Create Wikidata items for each of the 90 portraits
- September 2021 - Upload all images cleared by Freer Sackler provenance researchers to Wikimedia and add appropriate metadata to image
- October-December 2021 - Create Wikidata items for a selected number of print publications (25) related to the project. CAP Project report
Contributors
editWorkflow
editTasks
edit- Work on applying the Properties below, developing best practice guidelines as needed.
- Add new statements or edit existing statements for the name entities that are found in Wikidata, ensuring all entries have the previously agreed upon element values of identified as basic and core for this collection. Add statements for elements identified as extended only if they can be identified and added within a reasonable amount of time.
- Add new Wikidata items for names absent in the Wikidata environment if the identity of the sitter can be established.
- Data Modeling via User Stories and WDQS, including Demo Chinese Emperors on Listeria
- Tools to convert historical dates based on empirical eras (lunisolar calendaring):
- Enter dates in Chinese scripts, Converting Qing dynasty dates to the Republic
- Conversion between Western and Chinese Calendar (722 BCE — 2200 CE)
Chinese Ancestor Portraits in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art
editItem Label, Description, and Aliases (applicable for all items)
edit| Property | Value | Usage note |
|---|---|---|
| Label | ||
| Description | ||
| Alias | Chinese and Manchu names if available |
Properties Related to Portrait Sitters and Artists
editCore properties:
edit| Property | Value | Usage Note |
|---|---|---|
| instance of (P31) | human (Q5) | required |
| sex or gender (P21) | ||
| country of citizenship (P27) | ||
| date of birth (P569) | ||
| date of death (P570) | ||
| family (P53) | noble house. NOT family name | |
| family name (P734) | person only; not family | |
| on focus list of Wikimedia project (P5008) | WikiProject PCC Wikidata Pilot/Smithsonian Libraries Chinese Ancestor Portraits (Q107077160) |
Extended properties:
editProperties Related to Paintings (Artworks)
editCore properties:
editExtended properties:
editProject Year-end report (October 2020-September 2021)
editParticipation in the PCC Wikidata Pilot Project provided the Chinese Ancestor Portrait Project (CAPP) with a window into other libraries’ explorations and implementation of open access structured data, especially in the modeling of Wikidata properties. By the time the team joined the PCC Pilot, members of the CAPP project had already begun identifying and adding properties to existing Wikidata items for sitters in a collection of some 90 Chinese ancestor portraits owned by the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution.
Most of the sitters in these Chinese ancestor portraits lived during the Qing dynasty (1636-1912). The project team members found that many individuals portrayed in the portraits had no Wikidata item and that those who did often had far fewer statements than would typically be found for Western European figures of similar rank and status. Most existing items needed significant enhancement. As the Freer and Sackler had no databases or files with biographical information on these individuals a fair amount of research was required, much of it using Chinese language databases and name authority files.
Both the enhanced Wikidata items and the newly created ones needed statements with properties added, properties that were not necessarily seen in the items of their Western counterparts’, i.e, Eight Banner Register (P470) or Posthumous name (P1786). It was also particularly important to learn how data linked across languages, exploring the implications of adding different language values for the properties, as Qing court culture included both Chinese and Manchu language names.
As the CAPP project progressed the project scope expanded to include creating items for the paintings themselves. This was done, in part, to examine data modeling within the context of linking an object (painting) to an individual, either named or described. In most cases the painter is unknown so linkage to the person(s) portrayed was the primary focus of the CAPP team’s modeling discussions.
Fortunately, there were other PCC Pilot projects also grappling with modeling their WIkidata properties across multiple cultural groups (including smaller groups within larger cultural spheres), multiple linguistic environments and different historical time periods. The many PCC Pilot Wikidata Project discussions and presentations on these issues were an important element to the CAPP team’s developing a group of core and extended properties for this collection of Chinese ancestor portraits (see above). Participation also helped the project team with thinking through some best practices for modeling data on people living during the Qing dynasty historical period. Beyond this small project, some of the modeling practices learned should also be useful to the larger Smithsonian’s exploration of linked open data, as many of its collections are international in nature and cover an extremely broad swath of time.