Zhang Han

Who was Zhang Han?

Zhang Han was a leading scholar-official during the Ming Dynasty of China. Although eventually posted to serve in the capital at Beijing, Zhang was a native of the thriving commercial city of Hangzhou and a descendent of a wealthy family that ran a textile business. He was also a literary author, a painter, a follower of Chinese Buddhism, and an essayist while in retirement from office during his later years. According to the historian Timothy Brook, he was a "close observer of the changes of his age", in reference to China's intensified commercialism and consumption of commodities in the late Ming era and its effects upon Chinese culture.