Encountering the Majestic: Imperial Portraits and Qing Court Rites

T'oung Pao, 1997

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Orientations, 2024

Following nearly three years of research and curation, the special exhibition ‘The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: YUAN MING YUAN—Art and Culture of an Imperial Garden-Palace’ takes place at the Hong Kong Palace Museum from March to August 2024. It breaks new ground in its display of a wide range of artefacts—including paintings, calligraphy, ceramics, seals, prints, and architectural models and drawings—to demonstrate the crowning achievements of imperial garden-palace design, the stories about the garden’s principal residents, and the history of the Qing imperial court. These precious surviving remnants of the original appearance of Yuanmingyuan provide us with a direct medium to understand this lost treasure of art and architecture.

Archives of Asian Art, 2020

Faces of China: Portrait Painting of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1912). Exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with the special exhibition of the Asian Art Museum, National Museums in Berlin. Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2017.

“Portrait of Wang Menglou Playing Qin” (cat. 35), 174–175; “Portrait of Wang Yuyan Drawing Orchids” (cat. 36), 176–177; “Portrait of Tang Jinzhao in Leisure Activity” (cat. 44), 192–193; “Portrait of Tao Guan Appreciating an Inkstone” (cat. 46), 196–197; “Portrait of Married Couple Reading in a Studio” (cat. 61), 232–233.

Global Journal of Cultural Studies, 2022

This paper argues that the abundance in quantity and innovation of the painted and photographic portraits commissioned by Empress Dowager Cixi between the latter years of the 19 th and early years of the 20 th centuries, exceeded that of any other late Qing emperor or royal consort, and it is the diversity of gender references presented among them that is particularly distinctive. Through separating such a practice of ritualised "gender performance" into three stages, from 1) the 'masculinised' pose of "reading" appearing frequently in works of an earlier period, through 2) the gender-neutral divine imagery of dressing as a bodhisattva, to 3) the late-period feminised image of "dressing in front of the mirror", the purpose of this paper is to explore how gender is shown in a late Qing empress' portraiture, which is subject to multifarious changes dependent on different domestic and international political demands. The conclusion is that 1) on the international stage as set in the early years of the 20 th century, the image of a late Qing empress dowager participated in the broader shaping of China's national image as something weak, feminine and disempowered, and 2) the essential incompatibility of Chinese and Western visual cultures was a major factor in the failures of the projection of the image of late Qing China overseas.

Orientations, 2020

C ompiled during the 33rd year (1694) of the Kangxi emperor's reign , the Qing dynasty Records of Decoration and Display (Chen she dang) is a set of inventories that document the furnishings in China's imperial palaces. Organized by palace complex and year, the records detail the kinds of objects on display in the Forbidden City and the temporary imperial residences in Beijing and beyond. The earliest entry in this collection of documents, dating to 1694, enumerates the objects in the Palace of Tranquil Longevity (Ningshou gong) and a chamber to the south of the Gate of Solar Essence (Rijing men) in the Forbidden City (Gugong bowuyuan, 2013, vol. 17). This article focuses on the building labelled 'Ningshou gong' in the display record, which refers to an extant structure located behind the Hall of Imperial Supremacy (Huangji dian) in the Forbidden City's northeast corner. Built in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the Palace of Tranquil Longevity was renovated in the 28th year of the Kangxi reign (1690) and reinstated as the personal residence of Empress Dowager Xiaohuizhang (1641-1718; Fig. ), the official imperial consort of Kangxi's father, the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644-61) (Xu, 2013, p. 106). While the lives of the Qing emperors were recorded down to the most minute details, little is known about Qing imperial women beyond official accounts refracted through a male perspective.

The Mongol r u l ers had hardly any nee d fo r painting and even if some rare exceptions among the high of f ic ials took a ct i ve par t i n the li f e and e ndeavour of t he c r eative circ le s , they can hard l y be s aid t o have built any bridge s between the Mongol court and the realm of a rt. " Osvald Siren , 1958 . 1 Recent scholarship has shown that, contrary to t he view of the Mongols r epresented by Siren 's s t ateme nt, t he YU a n emperors and t heir f amilies att empt ed t o ma i ntai n Chinese court patterns of art use and appreciation, employed Chinese artist s a nd col l e cte d ancient paintings and cal ligraphy . 2 The character o f these act i vi t ies, of course , varied with t he temperaments and educational levels of indivi dual members of the ruling house. W e c an d i s t ingui sh, for inst ance, bet ween t he offici a l , p ro f orma acquis i t ion of p a int i ngs and calligraphy by Khubilai Kha n (r. 1260-1294), and the mor e personal, inf ormed interest in such objects d i spla yed

Ars Orientalis is a peer-reviewed annual volume of scholarly articles on the art and archaeology of Asia, the ancient Near East, and the Islamic world. It is published jointly by the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the University of Michigan Department of History of Art. Fostering a broad range of topics and approaches through themed issues, the journal is intended for scholars in diverse fields. Ars Orientalis provides a forum for new scholarship, with a particular interest in work that redefines and crosses boundaries, both spatial and temporal. Authors are asked to follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition.

in Aronsson P., Bugge Amundsen A. & Knell S. (eds), National Museums. London: Routledge., 2010

The 4th Peking University International Doctoral Student Forum of Art Studies, 2022

This paper discusses the power of antiquity in politically charged exhibitions for contemporary China, where the economy is flourishing, nationalist sentiment is rising, and international tensions are high. The first exhibition under examination is “The Journey Back Home” at the National Museum of China in 2019 which highlighted important repatriated cultural relics by the People’s Republic of China since 1949. The display, narration and representation of the exhibition will be examined to understand how antiquity was being utilised to celebrate national achievements convey the political message, and enhance national pride by creating contrasts between the prosperous present and the humiliated past, “Self” and “The Others”. In this way, why the repatriation of cultural relics matters to China, as well as the world, will be analysed. On the other hand, the International Exhibition of Chinese Art at Burlington House London in 1935 displayed Chinese art with the support of the government of the Republic of China. As politically significant as the former exhibition, it was the first time that the authority of China took advantage of its antiquities to demonstrate the charm of the country and earn its international standing. Nowadays, most exhibits that participated in the 1935 Exhibition are housed in the Palace Museum in Taipei, which adds another layer of political meaning to these national treasures. Based on the critical reading of extensive literature, media coverage and images, this paper provides a critical read of the two exhibitions, trying to understand how the events, where national historical myths were enacted, disseminated, and consumed by the public, created a political discourse through antiquity. Finally, the curatorial rationales of the exhibitions are analogised to demonstrate and significance of antiquity for China in today’s contexts. This paper is awarded "Specially Recommended Paper" at the 4th Peking University International Doctoral Student Forum of Art Studies, 2022.

Ars Orientalis Volume 43, 2013

Ars Orientalis is a peer-reviewed annual volume of scholarly articles on the art and archaeology of Asia, the ancient Near East, and the Islamic world. It is published jointly by the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the University of Michigan Department of History of Art. Fostering a broad range of topics and approaches through themed issues, the journal is intended for scholars in diverse fields. Ars Orientalis provides a forum for new scholarship, with a particular interest in work that redefines and crosses boundaries, both spatial and temporal. Authors are asked to follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition.

China 1800s: Material and Visual Culture , 2024

Portraiture is a critical and gendered genre in Qing court art. Biographical and symbolic, each portrait of the male sitter is a visual documentation of his idealised self. On the contrary, pictures of imperial women were mainly commissioned and approved by the male patron, in most instances the emperor, to serve the patriarchal gaze rather than demonstrate the sitter's personality or subjectivity. This chapter examines a rare and compelling exception: the portrait of Empress Xiaoquancheng 孝全成 (1808-1840) and the fourth princess commissioned by the Daoguang emperor in 1827. Xiaoquancheng was Daoguang's third empress and bore his successor, Xianfeng 咸丰 (r. 1850-61). The fourth princess, also known as Princess Shouan Gulun 寿安固伦 (1826-1860), was their third child and Daoguang's favourite daughter. The empress is portrayed as the emperor's beloved consort, a caring mother and, most uniquely, an individual accustomed to Han Chinese culture, a representation against the Qing court tradition of forbidding Manchu women from dressing in Han Chinese costumes. While such a personalised depiction was made possible with the emperor's permission, it paved the way for a much more provocative assertion of female agency that Xiaoquancheng's daughter-in-law, Empress Dowager Cixi, orchestrated towards the end of 19th century.

Ars Orientalis, 2020

This article compares the remarkable restorations of two relief sculptures from the Binyang Central Cave at the Longmen Grottoes, Henan Province, during the 1940s. The contrasting restorations of the Offering Procession of the Empress as Donor with her Court and Figure of Wei Mo Chi from the Longmen Grottoes reveal how the objects became embedded physically with changing notions of pedagogical and museum practices during a dynamic moment in the growth of the field of Asian art. In turn, an understanding of the complex transformations of these heavily restored objects will provide vital support for new digital conservation initiatives at the Longmen Grottoes that hope to identify remaining fragments from the site and return them to their original locations.