Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793 9819911591, 9789819911592

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Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793

Shanshan Chen

Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793

Shanshan Chen Shandong University of Arts Jinan, Shandong, China The University of Hong Kong Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong

ISBN 978-981-99-1159-2 ISBN 978-981-99-1160-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To my mother Xiling Jiang and my late father Hao Chen with love. To the memory of Dr. Lugen Yan who taught me it’s never too late to chase my passion.

Preface

This book is the outcome of my doctoral research project on the Macartney Embassy of 1793, which was the first British diplomatic mission to China. Although it failed to achieve its primary goal of expanding trade between the two empires, the mission did enable Britain to observe China closely for the first time. The embassy also created a large body of textual and visual records that are the primary focus of my study. I am particularly interested in how the embassy members approached, selected, and represented information on China, and how they helped to shape European perceptions of China in the 18th and 19th centuries. The images they created serve as a touchstone for the book’s consideration of three interconnected elements: diplomacy, art, and science. It recreates the processes through which the embassy’s draftsmen, scientists, and diplomats collaborated to prepare the visual images of China, and how the materials were reworked by artists, book illustrators, and publishers back in London. My starting point was a seminar organized by Prof. Benjamin Elman in East Asia Studies at Princeton University many years ago. My focus at the time was the so-called Qianlong silk tapestry commemorating the Macartney Embassy, an interest that expanded to encompass over a thousand drawings, sketches, and finished watercolors and engravings by embassy members, like William Alexander, Henry William Parish, and John Barrow. Most of the research conducted on the Macartney mission was by historian such as Alain Peyrefitte and James Hevia who were largely engaged in examining archival records to interpret the embassy as diplomatic event. My goal is to expand the analysis of the embassy’s output by conducting a systematic study of its artwork and other visual records. My three years of study at the University of Hong Kong were therefore spent researching the Macartney Embassy’s China images under the supervision of Prof. Greg Thomas and completing my doctoral thesis on this topic. I believe that the finished art works demonstrate that the artists offered a distinct viewpoint in the representation of China, sometimes differing from the textual accounts, by blending scientific and artistic elements. It was in the interposition of text and image that the British public formulated an ambivalent perception of China that embraced both admiration and disdain. British condescension toward foreign vii

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Preface

cultures, in this case under the rubric of Orientalism, was offset by a kind of respect, which becomes evident in the gift exchange and in many of the visual images that depict Chinese civilization and people with sophistication and complexity. In addition to scholars, the book targets general readers who are interested in global art history and East–West interactions. It contains a number of important images with detailed visual and historical analysis, designed to inform readers on how the British represented China and how that image helped to shape the European perception of China during the British global expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries. Jinan, China/Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong

Shanshan Chen

Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Greg M. Thomas at the University of Hong Kong. From the initial selection of the thesis topic to the completion of this book, I obtained his valuable and aspiring guidance, illuminating and constructive criticism, and friendly advice on my research. His rich knowledge, conscientious scholarship, and amiable and kind character provide me a role model to become a serious and successful scholar. I have benefited greatly from his profound knowledge in the field of the cross-cultural interaction between China and Europe which opened a hopeful and rewarding path for me to pursue advanced research in the future. I would extend my thankfulness to Prof. Benjamin Elman and Prof. Susan Naquin at Princeton University for their continuous support for my academic progress. They helped to read the draft, offered valuable advice, and provided the latest relevant research sources that made this book possible. I feel really grateful for my late friend, Dr. Lugen Yan, for his constant and enthusiastic encouragement and support for my academic work and personal life. He has been such an inspiration to me owing to his generous love. I would like to thank Prof. Like Wang, the former president of Shandong University of Arts, for his kind help for building my academic career in China where I could concentrate on finishing this book. I cherish the support of travel funds from the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong that financed my research trips to the UK and the USA where I was able to examine the archival materials and paintings related to my research. I received friendly welcome and assistant from the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, the India Office Library at the British Library, Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery, National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, and the Yale Center for British Art. Also, I would like to extend my thanks to David Reid who kindly helped to edit my manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

Lastly but most importantly, I must thank my mother who has been warmly supportive during my work on this book. I feel extremely grateful for her love and care in the process of so many years overseas pursuing my dream in art and later working as a scholar in art history in China. Without her endless encouragement, I cannot imagine how I could have completed this book which was so challenging yet rewarding.

Contents

1 Introduction to the Macartney Embassy to China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Trading History and the Canton System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 The Preparation, Formation, Progress, and Aftermath of the Embassy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.3 Scholars’ Opinions on the Embassy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 China’s Reputation in Text and Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 The Artistic and Scientific Contexts of the Embassy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Verbal and Visual Sources of the Embassy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 5 9 10 16 23 26

2 Gift Exchange and the Diplomacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 British and Chinese Concepts of Gift Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 British and Chinese Gifts of Art and Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Collecting and Exhibiting the Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31 31 33 44 50

3 The Diplomacy Underlying the Historical Encounter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 British Images of the Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Qianlong Silk Tapestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 53 65 76

4 Mapping and Exploring on the Travel Route . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.1 Navigation and Coastline Drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.2 Geography and Cartography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 4.3 Representing Global Natural History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5 Artistic Representation of Chinese Landscapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5.1 Chinese Cityscapes and the Topographic Aesthetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5.2 Landscapes and Imperial Parks in the Picturesque Aesthetic . . . . . . 118

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5.3 The Sublime and Chinese Ruins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 5.4 Riverscapes Along the Grand Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 6 Picturing Chinese People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Ethnography in Global Visual Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Qianlong Emperor and the Imperial Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Chinese People in Various Occupations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Chinese Women and Family Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Representing Chinese Religion and Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 Chinese Punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

147 147 151 160 166 173 181 189

7 Visualizing and Evaluating Chinese Science and Technology . . . . . . . . 7.1 Scientific Background of the Embassy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Chinese Shipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Land Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Scientific Apparatuses: Chinese Mathematics, Metallurgy, and Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Agricultural Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Military Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.7 Scientific Aspects of Chinese Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

191 191 192 200

8 The Legacy of the Macartney Embassy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 The Publications of the Embassy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 George Staunton’s Account and John Barrow’s “Travels in China” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.2 William Alexander’s Two Books of Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.3 The Influence of the Embassy’s Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Revived Chinoiserie: The Royal Pavilion at Brighton . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Proto-Orientalism: Thomas Allom’s “China Illustrated” . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

231 231

206 212 216 223 230

232 235 237 238 242 245

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3

Fig. 2.4

Fig. 2.5

Fig. 2.6

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

William Alexander, the planetarium, the principal gift to the emperor of China, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, A scepter of agate, given by the Emperor of China to Sir G. Staunton, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . William Alexander, A brocade bag, a mark of extraordinary favor, 1973, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, plan of the hall of audience and Throne, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, plan of the hall of audience which contained the presents, one of the gold jars, the Emperor’s letter on this table, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Barrow, plan of the hall of audience and the adjacent courts in the emperor gardens at Yuen-min-yuen (reproduced from The Authentic Account, 1797), engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The approach of the Emperor of China to his tent in Tartary to receive the British Ambassador (reproduced from The Authentic Account, 1797), engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry William Parish, sketch of the plan of the tent of the audience in Wanshuyuan, or the Garden of Ten Thousand Trees as prepared for the introduction of the British Embassy, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Fig. 3.3

Fig. 3.4

Fig. 3.5

Fig. 3.6

Fig. 3.7

Fig. 3.8

Fig. 3.9

Fig. 3.10 Fig. 3.11

Fig. 3.12

Fig. 3.13

Fig. 3.14

Fig. 3.15

Fig. 3.16

List of Figures

Henry William Parish, emperor’s arrival at the ten in Wanshuyuan or the garden of ten thousand trees on the morning of the British Ambassador’s introduction, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, The Emperor of China receiving the Ambassador at Jehol, Tartary, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, The Emperor of China receiving the Ambassador at Jehol, Tartary, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, The Emperor receiving the Embassy, with key to its members, 1793, ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Qianlong presenting a purse to George Thomas Staunton inside the imperial tent at Jehol, date uncertain, watercolor on paper. Source Wiki commons . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of Lord Macartney, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of George Staunton. 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Portrait of Lord Macartney, 1797, engraving. Source Wiki Comms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacques Philippe Le Bas, The Emperor giving a victory banquet in Peking to the officers and soldiers who distinguished themselves in Battle, based on the painting by Castiglione et al. (1765), engraving. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Qing court painters, Picture of tribute-bearers, date uncertain, kesi tapestry. Image courtesy of National Maritime Museum in Greenwich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Qing court painters, portrait of Dutch (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library . . . . . . . . . Qing court painters, portrait of Portuguese (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library . . . . . . . . . Qing court painters, portrait of German (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library . . . . . . . . . Qing court painters, portrait of French (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library . . . . . . . . .

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List of Figures

Fig. 3.17

Fig. 3.18

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2

Fig. 4.3

Fig. 4.4

Fig. 4.5

Fig. 4.6

Fig. 4.7

Fig. 4.8 Fig. 4.9

Qing court painters, Planetarium (reproduced from Illustration of Ritual Instruments), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Qing court painters, Armillary (reproduced from Illustration of Ritual Instruments), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, the Ladrone Islands, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . View of Island of Saint Paulo or Amsterdam, the conical rock near the entrance of the crater bearing west, distant one mile, based on drawings (signed) by Henry William Parish and John Barrow (above) and William Alexander (below), 1797, engraving (reproduced from The Authentic Account). Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cape Macartney, Cape Gower, and Staunton Island, based on drawings by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mercator’s projection of the world map (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . A chart of the islands to the southward of Tchu-san on the eastern coast of China, based on the cartographic drawing by John Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sketch from Zhe-hol in Tartary by land to Peking and from there by water to Hang-tchoo-foo, based on the cartographic drawing by John Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . Sketch from Hang-Tchoo-Foo to Quang-Tchoo-Foo or Canton in China, based on the cartographic drawing by John Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Cochineal insects, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A leaf of prickly pear with cochineal insects upon it (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Fig. 4.10

Fig. 4.11 Fig. 4.12

Fig. 4.13

Fig. 4.14

Fig. 4.15

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2

Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4

Fig. 5.5

Fig. 5.6

Fig. 5.7

List of Figures

William Alexander, The Cactus Optunia from the Roy. Botanical Garden at Rio de Janeiro where there is a large plantation of these trees for breeding & rearing the Cochineal Insect, 11 Dec. 1792, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of mangosteens, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . Image of Camellia sinensis (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The fire-backed pheasant of Java, based on the drawing by S. Edwards (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of the fishing bird, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fishing bird, based on the drawing by S. Edwards (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of Tianjin, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the Theatre at Tianjin, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of Tianjin, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . The Embassy’s reception at Tianjin, based on the painting by William Alexander, 1805, engraving and aquatint (reproduced from Costume of China). Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the western gates of the city of Peking, based on the drawings of Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the Hall of the Audience at Yuanmingyuan, 1792–1794, ink and watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the Hall of Audience at Yuanmingyuan, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . .

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110 111

111

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List of Figures

Fig. 5.8

Fig. 5.9

Fig. 5.10

Fig. 5.11

Fig. 5.12

Fig. 5.13

Fig. 5.14

Fig. 5.15

Fig. 5.16

Fig. 5.17

Fig. 5.18 Fig. 5.19

William Alexander, View of the Embassy’s residence at Beijing, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Embassy’s residence at Beijing, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of a bridge in the environs of the city of Suzhou, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805. aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chinese barges of the Embassy preparing to pass under a bridge, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A view of the Emperor’s imperial park in Peking, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry William Parish, View of the remarkable rock, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the remarkable rock, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the remarkable rock (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, print. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the imperial park at Rehe (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish and William Alexander, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plan of Potala, based on the drawings by Henry William Parish (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of Potala, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . View of Potala, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Fig. 5.20

Fig. 5.21

Fig. 5.22

Fig. 5.23

Fig. 5.24

Fig. 5.25

Fig. 5.26

Fig. 5.27

Fig. 5.28

Fig. 5.29

Fig. 5.30

Fig. 5.31

Fig. 5.32

List of Figures

Henry William Parish, Plan of the Great Wall, 1793, pen and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry William Parish, Plan of the Great Wall, 1793, pen and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plan of the Great Wall, based on the drawings by Henry William Parish (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry William Parish, View of the Great Wall, 1793, pen and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the Great Wall, based on the painting by Henry William Parish (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the West Lake with Leifeng Pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the Leifeng Pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the West Lake with the Leifeng Pagoda, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the Linqing pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the Linqing pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Imagery courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the city of Linqing of the Grand Canal, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the Golden Island, based on the drawing of William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plan of the sluice (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

129

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

137

138

138

139

140

List of Figures

Fig. 5.33

Fig. 5.34

Fig. 5.35

Fig. 5.36

Fig. 5.37

Fig. 5.38

Fig. 5.39

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3

Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5 Fig. 6.6 Fig. 6.7

William Alexander, View of barges passing through the sluice, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of barges passing through the sluice, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of barges passing through the sluice, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barges passing through the sluice, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of entrance of the Yellow River, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, View of the Baoying Lake, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . View of the Lake Paoyng where is separated from the Grand Canal by an embarkment of earth, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander and Daniel, Comparison of a Chinese and a Hottentot (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish and William Alexander, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Natives of St. Jago, 1797, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of a slave at Rio de Janerio, 1792, pen on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of Qianlong, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of Qianlong, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of Qianlong, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . Portrait of Qianlong, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xix

141

141

142

143

143

144

145

149 150

151 153 154 155

156

xx

Fig. 6.8

Fig. 6.9

Fig. 6.10

Fig. 6.11

Fig. 6.12 Fig. 6.13 Fig. 6.14

Fig. 6.15

Fig. 6.16

Fig. 6.17

Fig. 6.18 Fig. 6.19

Fig. 6.20

Fig. 6.21

Fig. 6.22

Fig. 6.23

List of Figures

Portrait of Qianlong (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . Portrait of Wang Daren (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Portrait of Qiao Daren (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of an anonymous official, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Imagery courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of fishermen, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . William Alexander, Trackers in Rainy Weather, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . A man with pipes for sale (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), hand-colored etchings with aquatint, 1814. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . A man selling betel (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), hand-colored etchings with aquatint, 1814. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . A bookseller (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), hand-colored etchings with aquatint, 1814. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . Image of the bound feet of Chinese women (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portraits of Chinese women, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . A Court lady (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814 hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . A fisher girl (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . William Alexander, Portraits of village women, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Woman and child (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . A Chinese family (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

157

159

160

161 162 163

164

165

166

167 169

170

171

172

173

174

List of Figures

Fig. 6.24

Fig. 6.25

Fig. 6.26

Fig. 6.27

Fig. 6.28 Fig. 6.29

Fig. 6.30

Fig. 6.31

Fig. 6.32

Fig. 6.33

Fig. 6.34

Fig. 6.35

Fig. 6.36

Fig. 7.1

Image of God of Haiwang (reproduced from The Authentic Account), based on drawing by William Alexander, 1797, print. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of Thunder God (reproduced from The Authentic Account), based on drawing by William Alexander, 1797, print. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of Holy Mother, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of a Confucian priest, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Buddhist (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . Buddhist Temple and Traveler (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library . . . A sacrifice at temple (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Scene of the offender beaten by bamboo, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Punishment of the Bastinado (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Punishment (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . William Alexander, Image of an offender wearing a cangue, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Punishment of the Cangue (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Punishment of the Cangue (reproduced from The Authentic Account), based on the drawing from William Alexander, 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plan, section and views of a passage boat of the lower part of the river Quang-sin, and of the Kang-kiang, ink drawing, 1794. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . .

xxi

176

177

178

179 180

181

182

183

184

185

186

187

188

193

xxii

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 7.3

Fig. 7.4

Fig. 7.5

Fig. 7.6 Fig. 7.7

Fig. 7.8

Fig. 7.9

Fig. 7.10

Fig. 7.11

Fig. 7.12 Fig. 7.13 Fig. 7.14 Fig. 7.15

Fig. 7.16 Fig. 7.17

List of Figures

William Alexander, Image of a traveling boat, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of a traveling barge (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a trading ship, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of a trading ship (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of ships of war, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a fisherman with his boat, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Chinese waterman, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of a fishing boat (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Portrait of a Chinese porter (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chinese porters (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a sedan chair, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a sedan chair, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . William Alexander, Image of a carriage, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . A carriage (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Portrait of a postman, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Mandarin wearing a letter from the Emperor of China, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . .

194

195

196

197 198

199

200

201

201

202 203 204 204

205 206

207

List of Figures

Fig. 7.18 Fig. 7.19

Fig. 7.20 Fig. 7.21

Fig. 7.22

Fig. 7.23 Fig. 7.24

Fig. 7.25

Fig. 7.26

Fig. 7.27

Fig. 7.28

Fig. 7.29

Fig. 7.30

Fig. 7.31

Fig. 7.32

William Alexander, Image of suan-pan, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . A trademan with his suan-pan (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a smith, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . Image of a compass (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of Chinese irrigation (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of chain pump, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of chain pump with people, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a water wheel, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of section and elevation of a wheel and by the Chinee for raising water (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Children collecting manure (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . Cannons (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection . . . . . . Instruments of War (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a shield and military fortress, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, view of a Chinese military post, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Chinese military post (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xxiii

208

209 210

211

213 213

214

216

217

217

219

219

220

221

222

xxiv

Fig. 7.33

Fig. 7.34

Fig. 7.35

Fig. 7.36

Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2

Fig. 8.3 Fig. 8.4

Fig. 8.5

List of Figures

William Alexander, Portrait of tiger of war, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A musician (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . Musical Instruments (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A scene of historical play at Chinese stage (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton (photo taken by Shanshan Chen, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image of a comedian (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Alexander, Image of a city gate, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London . . . . . . . Punishment of Bamboo (reproduced from The Chinese Empire Illustrated), 1858–1859, engraving. Image courtesy of Boston College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Junks passing on anchored plan on the imperial canal (reproduced from The Chinese Empire Illustrated), 1858–1859, engraving. Image courtesy of Boston College . . . . .

223

227

228

229 239

240 241

244

245

Chapter 1

Introduction to the Macartney Embassy to China

The Macartney Embassy of 1792–1794 was the first British diplomatic mission to China, seeking to open ties between the two empires. As part of the mission, the British government commissioned writers and artists to chronicle the geography and culture of a civilization that had, until then, been shrouded in mystery. The accounts and artwork the embassy brought back helped shape European perceptions of China in the century that followed and beyond.

1.1 Historical Background Lord George Macartney (1737–1806) led a British embassy of over 800 people to China, with the stated purpose of conveying congratulations from King George III to the Qianlong emperor (1711–1799) on the occasion of his eighty-third birthday. Their real aim, however, was to open the sealed gates of China in order to expand the British commercial market. The inherent conflict between the two goals came to a head when the British refused to carry out the required ceremonial ritual of the kowtow acknowledging the superiority of imperial China. Like other foreign tribute-bearers, the Qing court regarded the British embassy as representatives of lesser rulers who sought favor from the universal ruler of the Qing empire. As a result, the Qing court further refused all the diplomatic requests advanced by Lord Macartney by responding that they did not conform to the institutional system of the empire. Finally, the much-disappointed Macartney embassy was urged to return to Britain under the vigilant control of Qing officials. The Macartney Embassy to China of 1793 is generally believed to mark a transition in the European attitude towards China from admiration to contempt during a process of increasing knowledge about China. Although the British mission failed in its efforts to open the sealed gate of China, it did gain an opportunity to observe China closely for the first time. Britain’s attempts to open trade with China dating back to 1620 were met with resistance, both from Ming Dynasty authorities and already established Portuguese © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_1

1

2

1 Introduction to the Macartney Embassy to China

merchants. Although they made some inroads over the years, eighteenth century British traders were subject to a system established by the Qianlong emperor that confined foreign commerce to the city of Canton. The primary goals of the Macartney Embassy was to improve the trading conditions in China, and ameliorate relations with the Qing empire. The mission ultimately proved unsuccessful, due in large part, to Lord Macartney’s unwillingness kowtow to the emperor, an act which he deemed too humiliating to a representative of the British monarchy. The Macartney Embassy, however, did achieve some notable accomplishments. In addition to promoting trade and diplomacy, the mission sought to observe and record all aspects of China and its people. This aim was part of a broad shift in European attitudes toward the nation, from an admiration for an imagined China to a more realistic and practical engagement. It was also due to the European Enlightenment that resulted in voyages devoted to scientific exploration. By the time the mission was organized in the early 1790s, the authority of the Jesuits working in the Qing court began to be treated with skepticism, because “they lacked the detachment and ‘scientific’ exactness expected of the new wave of exploration.”1 China ceased to be a nation that could teach lessons about government and the ordering of society. The embassy aimed to collect various data to evaluate China’s rational order and scientific development, launching a project of cataloguing, describing, organizing, and evaluating new data about China through empirical and scientific means. The knowledge acquired by the embassy led to China being evaluated by “selfcriteria”, which means that British writers were often unconsciously using their own standards to assess China.2 Accordingly, China was thought deficient in various aspects including government, scientific development, and people’s standard of living. The embassy’s failure, combined with many negative criticisms expressed in the embassy’s publications, gradually diminished China’s reputation in Britain and in Europe more generally.

1.1.1 Trading History and the Canton System The embassy was part of trading history that predated their arrival by over one hundred and fifty years. The earliest trading contacts between the Britain and China in the mid-sixteenth century were accompanied by repeated attempts to establish formal relations with China. When the British arrived, Spanish and Portuguese merchants were already actively engaged in a lucrative China trade, that triggered the British interest. Earlier, several attempts were made to open the trade with China, but the missions were all aborted without even arriving in China. For example, in 1583, John Eldred, Ralph Fitch, John Newbery, and others carried the letter from Queen 1

Marshall (1993, p. 14). For the definition of the “self-criteria” of the British writers, see Zhang (1990, pp. 286–287). Zhang explains that the British writers applied their self-criteria through using their own standards to assess China, and these views could be favorable opinions or criticisms.

2

1.1 Historical Background

3

Elizabeth, and tried to reach China by sea. But the mission failed in reaching China with the attack from the Portuguese.3 In 1596, Captain Benjamin Wood’s expedition left England for the Far East. Following another assault by the Portuguese fleet, they encountered a series of misfortunes, and ship finally foundered in a storm.4 Attracted by the profits made through trading with China, Captain John Weddell made another ambitious attempt in 1637 when he arrived at Canton, and began trade negotiation with Chinese on behalf of the East Asia Company. However, lacking the military power to sustain their presence, they were forced to leave China.5 In 1672, the English East India Company (EIC) succeeded the Dutch East India Company to gain the trading opportunity with China in Taiwan. Around 1700, the English transferred their trading base from Taiwan to Canton, where the EIC was granted the privilege of monopoly of trade in the East Indies until 1833. In the eighteenth century, the British East India Company was the most important agent in trading with China. It was a fusion of two companies founded in 1708: the jointstock “Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading to the East Indies” formed in 1600 and the “English Company Trading to the East Indies” formed in 1698. The company’s full name is “The United Company of Merchants of England Trading into the East Indies,” which monopolized all the trade between England and Asia. The stockholders of the company elected twenty-four members as Court of Directors who would govern EIC and make decisions at East Indian House, located in Leadenhall Street, London.6 As a monopoly based on trading spice, cotton, silk, tea, opium, and other products, the EIC acted as an agent of British imperialism in India from the early eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, and expanded its influence in China during the nineteenth century. Propelled by the profits gained through the British “conquest” of India, the EIC turned its attention to India’s neighbor, China in the hope of establishing direct trading relations as the Portuguese and the Dutch had. Britain was able to engage in trade with China on a large scale. China exported a great variety of goods to Britain, including porcelain, silk, and tea, while British exports remained quite limited, including cotton, glass, pepper, and other goods. However, a series of accidents soured the Sino-British relations, like the Flint affair, which helped precipitate the Canton System. In 1759, the British merchant and diplomat James Flint sailed to Tianjin, and sent a petition to the Qianlong emperor complaining of being cheated of the money he was owed. As a result, several Chinese officials were punished at different levels. But Flint’s attempt to overthrow the single

3

For the Chinese translation of Queen Elizabeth’s letter, and the John Newbery’s expedition, see Qin and Gao (1998, pp. 19–20). 4 For the information on the progress of Captain Benjamin Wood’s expedition, see Ferguson (1903, pp. 330–334). 5 For the biography of John Weddell, see Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900. 6 For the introduction of the English East India Company, see the entry of “East India Company” in Britannica online database (2022).

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1 Introduction to the Macartney Embassy to China

port trade system also led to his three-year imprisonment in Macau, and his final banishment from the country forever.7 In addition to the diplomatic and commercial relations with China, the British intellectuals developed intensive interests in Chinese history, language, and culture from the seventeenth century, including John Webb (1611–1672), Thomas Hyde (1636–1703), and Sir William Temple (1628–1699). Although John Webb never visited China, he believed that the system of Confucian ethics was superior to those of Europe. Seeking an explanation from Biblical history, he believed that the Chinese people were descended from Adam, and the Chinese language was the primordial language prior to the creation of various tongues at the Tower of Babel.8 Another example is a Chinese convert named Shen Fuzong (1658–1691) whom European Jesuits had brought back from China. Sir Godfrey Kneller actually had painted a portrait of him. Working with Shen in the shared language of Latin, Thomas Hyde mastered the Chinese language, and produced the first catalog of the books collected at the Bodleian library, Oxford.9 The Jesuits had a long history of engagement with China dating from 1582, including holding respected positions in the Ming Dynasty bureaucracy. Although their influence faded under Manchu rule, they remained a presence in China in the late eighteenth century and their knowledge of Chinese language and customs played a role in the Macartney mission’s interactions with Qing officials. The initially favorable views of the Jesuits working in China became quite ambivalent in the eighteenth century. For example, Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) in his work The citizen of the world of 1762 shared this positive view in which he described the Chinese nation as an erudite and cultured one. However, some influential thinkers and intellectuals began to shift their attitude towards China. In 1719, Daniel Defoe published “The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” in which he China as backward compared to Western standards.10 The Canton system’s restrictive rules for trading with foreigners was the primary catalyst for sending an embassy to China. In 1757, the Qianlong emperor issued the policy of the “single port commerce system,” known as the Canton system, in which all trade had to be managed by Hong merchants in the Thirteen Factories outside the city of Canton (Guangzhou) within a limited period of five months every year. British merchants were not allowed to enter Canton, and no women were allowed in the factories. Foreigners were unable to study the Chinese language since anyone who dared to teach the language would be harshly punished by the Chinese government. The Hong merchants were organized into Cohong (corporate bodies) in dealing with foreign trade, which were responsible to the Hoppo or Guangdong Customs Supervisor, 7

This historical event is called Accident of Ningbo or Accident of Hong Renhui (John Weddell) in Chinese context. For its detailed description, see Qin and Gao (1998, pp. 25–28). 8 Frodsham (1964, pp. 389–408). 9 For the biography of Shen Fuzong, see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Batchelor (2013). 10 Starr (2010, pp. 435–454). In this article, Starr argues that Defoe’s satire reflects the British who defended absolutism in political order and freethinking in religion, while in the eyes of these people, the fondness for Chinese goods, tyrannical social order and idolatrous religion proved a threat and danger to the European commercial, political, and religious spheres.

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5

who was further supervised by the Viceroy or Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi. Under this system, corruption turned out to be a serious problem because the Hoppo often extracted money from the Hong merchants for his own benefit or paid bribes to the Court in Beijing for protection.11 Meanwhile, the trade imbalance between China and Britain was growing due to the high demand for Chinese tea, which the Qing government forced the EIC to pay for with silver. In order to address the trade deficits and limited trading ports, the EIC and the British government decided to send an embassy to China, hoping the emperor would understand the British position and take steps to improve trading conditions for British merchants. To avoid the interference of the Hoppo and Viceroy of Canton, the embassy intended to go to the imperial court in Beijing directly.12

1.1.2 The Preparation, Formation, Progress, and Aftermath of the Embassy An earlier attempt, the Cathcart embassy of 1787, was aborted due to the death of the ambassador at sea off Sumatra in 1788. The idea of sending another embassy was revived in October 1791 by Henry Dundas (1742–1811) and William Pitt (1759– 1806), when Dundas became the Home Secretary in Pitt’s government while retaining his position on the Board of Control of the EIC. The government appointed Lord George Macartney as the ambassador of the British mission. Financed by the EIC, the embassy was instructed by the Court of Directors of the EIC to achieve several goals: a relaxation of the Canton system, the opening of new ports near tea- and silkproducing areas, the establishment of a resident Minister in Beijing, the expansion of exports of British products, and the opening of Japan, Cochin China, and the East Islands to British trade.13 In addition, Lord Macartney was instructed to collect all kinds of information—economic, political, military, intellectual, cultural, social, and philosophical—about China.14 The embassy was composed of experienced diplomats, politicians, scientists and technicians, and military personnel, as well as artists and draughtsmen, typical of late eighteenth-century global expeditions like James Cook’s voyages. Macartney required that the retinue consist of able men who could assist in the negotiations, and the men in the arts and sciences who could conduct experiments with the modern scientific instruments, gather information on Chinese society, and study Chinese science and technology.15 11

For general information on the Canton System, see Pritchard (1973, pp. 128–141), and Qin (1998, pp. 19–28). 12 Ibid. 13 For the information on the goals of the Macartney Embassy to China, see Pritchard (1973, pp. 307–311). 14 Ibid. 15 Pritchard (1973, pp. 272–279).

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1 Introduction to the Macartney Embassy to China

George Macartney had extensive experience in diplomacy and colonial administration. Born near Belfast on May 14, 1737, he had been trained in diplomacy during his two-years in Continental Europe. Prior to this appointment as ambassador to China, he had served as the Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Catherine the Great of Russia, as a member of Irish and British Parliaments, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, as the Governor of the West Indian Island of Grenade, and as the Governor of Madras.16 He personally selected the members and paid particular attention to the make-up of the embassy to ensure it was conducted with pomp and dignity. George Leonard Staunton (1737–1801), who had established a life-long friendship with Macartney in the West Indies and Madras, would serve as secretary and Minister Plenipotentiary in the absence of the ambassador. Ancheson Maxwell, formerly the private secretary for Macartney in India, and Edward Winder, a distant relative of Macartney, were the two Under-secretaries. Aeneas Anderson served as Macartney’s valet.17 Staunton’s twelve-year-old son accompanied him as Page to the ambassador, and was responsible for copying the documents for the Manchu emperor with some basic Chinese he learned on the voyage. His tutor J. C. Huttner, a philologist, was responsible for translating letters into Latin which the Jesuits then translated into Chinese, and vice versa, to facilitate communication between the embassy and the Qing court. There were also two Chinese interpreters, Paolo Cho and Jacobus Ly (Mr. Plumb), whom Staunton found at the Chinese College at Naples. For military protection, Macartney was given three ships: the Lion, with sixty-four guns, commanded by Sir Erasmus Gower; an East-Indiaman, the Hindostan, commanded by Captain William Mackintosh; and a brig, the Jackall. Lieutenant-Colonel George Benson served as the commander and military escort, and under him was Lieutenant Henry Parish, who oversaw an artillery detachment. The guard consisted of 10 dragoons, 20 artillerymen, and 20 infantry soldiers to impress the Manchu emperor “with both the pomp and the power of the English.”18 As the president of the Royal Society, Joseph Banks (1743–1820) was an instrumental figure who was responsible for guiding the Macartney Embassy on the scientific aspects of the mission. In addition to providing direction for the embassy itself, he selected and monitored the publication of Staunton’s large three-volume account of the embassy.19 Banks instructed the embassy to collect information on silkworms mulberry trees, with the goal of sending them to India and England for cultivation. He also asked them to collect information on textile manufacture, including the silk dyeing process and the production of nankeen cloth.20 To meet the scientific aims of the mission, Macartney selected several important scientists and technicians. John Barrow (1764–1848), a mathematician and scientist who taught young Staunton math, worked as a Comptroller. The artillery Lieutenant Henry Parish was also a 16

For Macartney’s biography, see Pritchard (1973, p. 272), and Singer (1992, p. 2). For the formation of the Macartney Embassy, see Pritchard (1973, p. 276). 18 Ibid. 19 Banks’ papers at the State Library of New South Wales indicate that he participated in the production of George Staunton’s official account. 20 Singer (1992, pp. 159–162). 17

1.1 Historical Background

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trained surveyor skilled in making diagrams and plans. The two medical doctors were Dr. Hugh Gillan and Dr. William Scott. James Dinwiddie, “a Scotch Philosopher” and experimentalist in electricity and balloon flying, served as a Machinist. Members also included mathematical instrument maker Victor Thibault and watchmaker Charles Henry Petitpierre, two gardeners and botanists named John Haxton and David Stronach, and metallurgist Henry Eades.21 As was common for most embassies and scientific expeditions, artists were included to record images of people, places, and things encountered throughout the voyage. As part of their technical role in gathering information about navigation and geography, Parish and Barrow were responsible for making graphic and cartographic images. The official artist was Thomas Hickey, a portrait painter and friend of Lord Macartney, whose only surviving works related to the mission were a portrait of Alexander and a drawing of boat trackers. Barrow wrote in his Autobiographical Memoir: “I believe he executed nothing whatever while on the embassy, but in conversation he was a shrewd, clever man.”22 Nevertheless, he received a salary of £200 per annum, twice Alexander’s salary.23 William Alexander (1767–1816), on the other hand, was appointed as draughtsman, with responsibility to record what he saw during the journey. He is the source of most of the embassy’s images, producing hundreds of sketches and watercolors of Chinese scenes and people. The Macartney Embassy’s three vessels, the Lion, Hindostan and Jackall set off from Portsmouth on September 26, 1792 and arrived at Macau on June 19, 1793, where George Staunton disembarked to meet EIC officials before sailing north to Tianjin. Prior to arrival, EIC representatives had met with the military governor of Canton to request permission to land in Tianjin, about 140 km from Beijing. The British officials proposed two reasons for the landing site, to avoid damage to precious gifts brought for the emperor during a long overland trip, and to avoid the delay the embassy would incur travelling from Guangzhou to Tianjin. After a few setbacks, General Fu Kangan (1754–1796), the Viceroy of Liangguang finally brought back the Qianlong emperor’s agreement to the embassy’s request. When the ships reached the Yellow Sea, they were joined by the East Indiaman Endeavor, which was sent to guide the British ships to Tianjin. The gifts were unloaded and shipped to Dagu by junks. From Dagu, they were unloaded again to be transported to Tongzhou. On August 6, Liang Kentang (1717–1801), the Viceroy of Zhili came to greet the embassy and informed them that the imperial audience with the emperor would be arranged at the Imperial Mountain Resort in Rehe. The British embassy arrived in Beijing on August 21, and were housed at Hongya Garden near Yuanmingyuan. They were asked to place the gifts in this Summer Palace where Barrow and Dinwiddie were responsible for assembling them. About seventy members of the embassy left Beijing on September 2 and headed for Rehe to meet the Qianlong emperor, though the embassy’s draughtsman William Alexander

21

For the composite of the Macartney Embassy, see Pritchard (1973, pp. 290–295). Cited from Legouix (1980, p. 10). 23 Ibid. 22

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was ordered to remain in Beijing, and missed the opportunity to observe the ritual ceremony. On September 8, the embassy arrived at the outskirts of Rehe which lies to the north of the Great Wall. The Kangxi emperor had built an imperial palace and garden where the Manchu emperors often met foreign dignitaries where they were away from Beijing. The meeting here with the Qianlong emperor was derailed by the kowtow issue, which provided a formal acknowledgement of Chinese superiority. The British had encountered similar protocol issues in their earlier engagement with the Mughal courts of India. In 1615, Sir Thomas Roe, the first English ambassador to the Jahangir emperor had refused such a degrading demand of performing kowtow to uphold English honor. The first Russian embassy of 1656 and a second Dutch embassy of 1667 were all dismissed without an imperial audience due to their refusal perform kowtow to the Kangxi emperor. And even when Europeans did agree to this act of submission, they did not achieve the desired result. During the 1655 Dutch embassy to China, the Dutch ambassador performed kowtow in front of the Shunzhi emperor, but they were eventually not allowed to trade with China.24 Earlier, Henry Dundas had instructed Macartney to accept “all ceremonials of the Court which may not commit the honor of your Sovereign or lessen your own dignity.”25 However, Lord Macartney believed that the kowtow was too demeaning. Throughout the process, the embassy was urged to perform kowtow for the imperial ceremony. Lord Macarteny insisted that whatever ceremony he performed, a Chinese official of equal rank should do the same before the portrait of George III. The Chinese officials objected to this proposal, and claimed that the Macartney Embassy was merely tribute-bearers according to Chinese tribute system. Finally, it was agreed that Macartney could perform a single prostration rather than the typical nine, in addition to touching a knee to the ground. The imperial audience took place on September 14, 1793, during which Lord Macartney exchanged gifts with Qianlong and presented King George’s letter to the emperor. After the meeting, Qianlong sent a letter to the British king, and refused all the requests advanced by Lord Macartney by claiming that “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its borders. There is no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our produce.”26 By the time the British embassy departed Beijing, Qianlong had ordered a military governor named Song Yun (1752–1835) to accompany Lord Macartney to return to Canton together with Wang Wenxiong (1748–1800) and Qiao Renjie (1740–1804). When they arrived in Hangzhou, the embassy was divided into two groups: one boarded the Hindostan led by Song Yun, and the other travelled to Canton along the Great Canal accompanied by Changlin, the Manchu prince. When they got to Canton, the embassy soon left for Macau, where they received the news that British 24

For the information on earlier embassies, see Stevenson (2021, pp. 93–95). Hevia (1995, p. 80). 26 For the full translation of Qianlong’s letter to George III, see Harold Marcuse’s (2022) course page. 25

1.1 Historical Background

9

were engaged in military conflicts with France, so they had to give up the plan to visit the several islands in eastern China, the Korean peninsula and Japan. On March 17, 1794, the EIC commercial vessels joined the Macartney embassy ships and sailed back Britain, entering Portsmouth Harbor on September 6.27 In 1816 a second British mission, the Amherst Embassy, was dispatched to the Jiaqing Court of the Qing empire. Again, the British embassy refused to kowtow, which eventually led to another expulsion from China without any advances in trade policy. From 1840 to 1860, the Western powers waged two opium wars with the Qing dynasty in which Western modern military technology led to easy victories over the Chinese forces. The Qing government was compelled to sign the “Treaty of Nanking” and the “Treaty of Tientsin,” which granted favorable tariffs, trade concessions, reparations, and territory to the Europeans. These included requests proposed by Lord Macartney five decades earlier. For example, the “Treaty of Nanking” (1842) forced China to establish five treaty ports at Shanghai, Canton, Ningpo, and Foochow, and ceded the territory of Hong Kong. The “Treaty of Tientsin” (1858) allowed the residence of foreign diplomats in Beijing, reduced tariffs, and guaranteed various privileges to British residents in China.28

1.1.3 Scholars’ Opinions on the Embassy Scholarly opinion on the embassy’s aims and achievements has been mixed. Scholars of foreign relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed a pattern of “China’s Response to the West” in which China was fashioned into a stagnant and involuted traditional state.29 This view persisted in later scholarship, for example in the influential 1989 book, The Immobile Empire, in which the French scholar Alain Peyrefitte described the process of the mission and its failure. He contended that China’s cultural conceit led to the confrontation between Great Britain and China, which formed a barrier to China’s successful transformation.30 In 1993, the volume Ritual and Diplomacy: The Macartney Mission to China 1792–1794 was published to commemorate the bicentenary of the embassy.31 Authors Zhang Shunhong and Wang Tseng-tsai reiterated the argument that Emperor Qianlong’s Sino-centric view of the world led to China’s disasters of the nineteenth century.32 Chinese historian Qin Guojing’s The Qianlong Emperor and Lord Macartney takes a similar view, 27

For the detailed summary of the Macartney Embassy, see Peyrefitte (1993), Singer (1992), Qin (1998). 28 For the information on the Amherst Embassy to China, 1816, see Stevenson (2021). 29 Teng and Fairbank (1954). This work contains primarily the English translations of essays and official writings on Chinese policies between 1839 and 1923 in which Fairbank proposed that idea that China’s modern history was basically witnessed responses from Western impacts known as “impact and response” pattern. 30 Peyrefitte (1993). 31 Bickers (1993). 32 See Zhang Shunhong and Wang (1993, pp. 31–56).

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examining the portrayal of the encounter between the Qing and British empires in relevant Qing archives.33 These works all emphasize the stagnancy of the Qing empire, which the authors blame for the failure of the embassy. In recent years, this perspective has been challenged by American scholars who have developed a New Qing history. They view the construction of the Qing empire as an imperial formation, and argue that the Qianlong emperor adopted different personas in order to rule a multiethnic empire.34 In Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793, James Hevia compared Chinese and British sources to examine the confrontation of the two empires from a historical perspective informed by postcolonial theories and cultural studies. He challenged the traditional interpretation of the Macartney mission as a clash between two cultural entities, and argued that the failure of the embassy was a result of “competing and ultimately incompatible views of the meanings of sovereignty and the ways in which relations of power were constructed.”35 His work ignited a broader debate among scholars on the application of “post” theories to the study of China.36 Huang Yinong analyzed the context in which the texts and images of the historic meeting were produced, and examined the point of view of each author. He proposed that the British embassy and the Qing court reached a compromise regarding the form of guest ritual, and further argued that their documents were created in a way that left room for “interpretation advantageous to each other, while neglecting those aspects considered less respectful.”37 Rather than accepting the earlier scholarship seeing China as a stagnant empire that lost the opportunity to develop science, the New Qing history regards eighteenth century China as a dynamic entity with an equally imperial expansionist agenda.

1.2 China’s Reputation in Text and Image The Macartney embassy marked a historic transition in European views of China, with widespread admiration in many eighteenth-century texts giving way to an ambivalent attitude and even a critical stance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Before the eighteenth century, most British texts on China regarded it as a great nation with a strong economy and rich culture. The earliest contact between China and the West was recorded by the Venetian merchant traveler Marco Polo (1254–1324), who described thirteenth century China in great detail. Travel accounts 33

Qin (1998). On the New Qing history, see Rawski (1996, pp. 829–850), and Crossley (1999). 35 Hevia (1995, p. 28). 36 See James L. Hevia, “Postpolemical Historiography: A Response to Joseph W. Esherick” in Modern China 24.3 (1998): 319–327; Joseph W. Esherick, “Tradutore, Traditore: A Reply to James Hevia” in Modern China 24.3 (1998): 328–332, Elman and Huters (1997, pp. 118–130), Ge (1998, 135–139), Zhang (2001, pp. 90–91), Luo (2002, pp. 1–31). 37 Cited from the English abstract of Huang (2007, pp. 35–106). 34

1.2 China’s Reputation in Text and Image

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from the 13th to sixteenth centuries generally depicted China as a splendid civilization in terms of its vast territory, prosperous economy, and large population.38 But it was not until the sixteenth century that interactions between China and the West became substantial and frequent. From the 16th to eighteenth centuries, European Jesuits played a dominant role in transmitting knowledge, science, and culture. They went beyond the prosperous outward image of China to engage in the interpretation of Chinese civilization at a moral and spiritual level. The Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) befriended some of the most eminent Chinese Confucius scholars, such as Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) and Li Zhizao (1565–1630), with whom he opened intercultural and philosophical dialogue. Ricci served as an advisor on astronomy to the imperial court of the Wanli emperor (1563–1620) of the Ming dynasty in Beijing, where he also established the first Catholic church in China. When the Ming Dynasty fell to the Qing, Jesuits such as Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591–1666) and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688) remained engaged in transmitting knowledge of Western science, astronomy, mathematics, and visual arts to the Manchu court. Jesuits also brought Chinese knowledge back to Europe through their detailed accounts and correspondence. Confucian Classics were translated into French and Latin, exerting a great influence on European society and culture, especially the Enlightenment. During the seventeenth century, Jesuits began travelling to distant areas in China. In his account of 1615, Ricci explains that China is a kingdom governed by a benevolent despot in a Confucian bureaucracy that has effectively ensured the order and harmony of society.39 He also elaborates on China’s prosperity and is impressed by the industry of the Chinese people. This description was in accord with the European political ideal of benevolent despotism of the period. In his classic 1967 study The Chinese Chameleon, Raymond Dawson proposes that this idealized image of Chinese rule was a kind of exaggeration and oversimplification by the European Jesuits who emphasized Chinese or Manchu emperors’ tolerance and possible openness to the conversion of the whole empire to Christianity.40 Several influential works followed Ricci’s initial accounts, including Semedo and Kircher’s books published in 1642 and 1667 respectively, Confucius Sinarum Philosophus of 1687, Le Comte’s Nouveaux Memoires sur la Chine in 1696, and Leibniz’s Novissima Sinica in 1697. 38

Such early travelers as John of Plano Carpini, William of Rubruck, and Marco Polo described what they knew or saw about Chinese people and their society. Especially, Marco Polo’s The Description of the World lauds China’s material richness and prosperity. During the age of discovery of the sixteenth century, contact between China and the west resumed with the global exploration pioneered by the Portuguese and Spanish. Galeote Pereira, Gaspar da Cruz, and Martin de Rada produced accounts of their travels in China, which helped to formulate a dominant western image of China. Based on them, the priest Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza later published an influential comprehensive history of China entitled History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China in Rome in 1585, which was read by many well-educated Europeans in the early seventeenth century. 39 Dawson (1967, p. 43). Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628) translated Matteo Ricci’s diary from Italian into Latin, and adapted it with other materials into an account of the early years of the China mission. The book was entitled De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (On the Christian Mission among the Chinese by the Society of Jesus…), and published in 1615 in Augsburg. 40 Ibid., p. 50.

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The writings of the Jesuits reached a pinnacle when Jean-Baptiste Du Halde produced The General History of China, published in French and English in 1735. Although Du Halde had never visited China, his work was the most comprehensive product of the Jesuits’ scholarship on China, providing a major source of information for European intellectuals. Du Halde’s work presents an idealized image of China, with a prosperous economy, peaceful society, mild-tempered people, and even a superior legal system. Dawson analyzes the impact of these works on European religious and political thought. In terms of religion, he notes that China provided a living example of deism or natural religion which required no revelation and had an independent that proved difficult to fit into the Biblical chronology. On the political side, Chinese society was believed to be ruled by philosophers, providing Europe with an example of “enlightened despotism,” which especially appealed to neo-monarchists in France.41 European views of China underwent a shift in the eighteenth century, reflecting mixed feelings of praise and criticism.42 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz believed that China and Europe were equal civilizations and pursued cultural interchange between them. The French Enlightenment scholar Voltaire (1694–1778) praised the Chinese government for ruling according to morals and laws rather than “despotism,” while admiring China’s considerable prosperity, with a large population and sufficient material supply. Francois Quesnay (1694–1774), a renowned Physiocrat, considered China to be a good model for its productive agriculture and peasants enjoying a free life without being overly taxed. During this same period, however, other intellectuals began to criticize these idealized views. The Sottish political economist Adam Smith (1723–1790) in his influential work The Wealth of Nations noticed the poverty of lower ranks of people and China’s lack of foreign trade, which resulted in a failure to learn about the more advanced machinery and industrial practices in other parts of the world. In his theory of political systems, Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755) divided governments into three types: republic, monarchy, and despotism, proposing that climate was the social determinant of each system. He proposed that China was governed by despots whose rule was based on Confucian thought and filial piety. In contrast to earlier European Jesuits and scholars who explored positive aspects of China in order to highlight the weakness of European society, Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) used a negative image of China to highlight Britain’s superiority. Within the Macartney embassy, judgments varied according to different individuals’ social, political, and intellectual backgrounds. Historians have linked these often conflicting eighteenth-century views to changes within European society. Jonathan Spence in his 1998 book The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds examines the western responses to China through forty-eight sightings across a period from 1253 to 1985, arguing that in each sighting, the responses were mixed and overlapped in time and space. He further contends that the image of China in western minds was 41

Ibid., pp. 54–55. For general introduction of western views of China during the eighteenth century, see Dawson (1967), Mackerras (1989), and Spence (1998).

42

1.2 China’s Reputation in Text and Image

13

often inaccurate due to imagination, stereotype, and intellectual qualifications.43 Dawson contends that such changes “have not reflected changes in Chinese society so much as changes in European intellectual history.”44 He traces these changes in relation to such historical landmarks as the Catholic and Protestant missions in China. Colin Mackerras in his Western Images of China of 1989 similarly contends that the image of China experienced historical shifts between positive and negative attitudes, but he emphasizes how each shift was related not only to reality but also to the observers’ own backgrounds, biases, and ideologies. He focuses on individuals with different cultural background and identity as well as personal temperament.45 Greg Thomas challenges the conception of monolithic civilization through the investigation of internal diversity within the very definition of civilization. In comparison to views on China, he argues, British people could identify the merits and deficiencies of their own civilization to help formulate their own self-identity in the process of modernization, so that the British evaluation of China requires us “to consider how diverse agents within Britain evaluated diverse aspects of China according to those agents’ diverse interests and value systems.”46 His point of view is critical to understanding how this ambivalent attitude of the British embassy came about and how it was related to the definition of British people’s identity in the context of global imperial expansion. Analyzing the perspectives of embassy members through the lens of these works, a number of insights emerge. The diplomats and politicians on the embassy were focused on expanding the British empire, so they mapped Chinese territory with an eye toward commercial and economic exploitation. The scientific experts were more objective, collecting and examining information to further the acquisition of global knowledge. The artists depicted a more pleasant and harmonious image of China based in part on scientific observation and in part on modifying reality to conform to Picturesque formulas. They offered a distinct perspective on China that in many cases contrasts with the verbal narration. It was through these different representations and perceptions that the embassy gathered and conveyed knowledge of China. In terms of visual portrayal, eighteenth-century European art and material culture wavered among the idealized, hybrid, and scientific representations of China by European Jesuits; the exotic depiction of China by early European travelers; and the fanciful and imaginative images of Chinoiserie. In the seventeenth century, the Jesuits sought to create a view of Confucianism that was acceptable to Europeans in the mist of the Rites Controversy. They created the well-known Confucius Sinarum Philosophus which includes the portrait of Confucius which became the symbol of the literati culture of China.47 In addition to this popular image, in the eighteenth 43

Spence (1998). Cited from Dawson (1967, p. 7). 45 Mackerras (1989). 46 Thomas (2016, p. 50). 47 For the introduction of Confucius Sinarum Philosphus, see Dematte (2007, p. 36). It is a collection of Confucian classics edited by the twelfth-century Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi. The four Jesuits editors Prospero Intorcetta, Christian Herdtricht, Francois de Rougemont, and Philippe Couplet 44

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century, the Jesuits participated in the creation of the French version of Dijian tushuo, an illustrated book that portrayed eighty-one good deeds for the young Wanli emperor of the Ming Dynasty to emulate and thirty-six bad deeds to avoid.48 The French version of 1788 consisted of twenty-four engravings by Helman.49 It was originally commissioned by the Qianlong emperor, and was redrawn by the Jesuit painter JeanDenis Attiret and sent to France for engraving and printing under the supervision of Charles-Nicolas Cochin II.50 The French Minister Henri-Leonard-Jean-Baptiste Bertin obtained drawings and prints, which formed the basis of the French version.51 These engravings show an idealized China which promoted filial piety, supported education, and praised upright deeds. In addition to the representation of the moral history of China, the European Jesuits who worked for the emperor had the opportunity to observe his public career and private life, and provided the more hybrid style of China imagery that witnessed intercultural communication between China and Europe, such as the twenty engravings of the European Pavilions that were commissioned by Qianlong emperor in 1783. Jesuits were also engaged in producing and disseminating scientific knowledge of China. Athanasius Kircher, who never traveled to China, created his China Monumentis. It included the scientific but exotic illustrations that were developed from Michael Boym’s Flora Sinensis and Chinese images. The cartographic representation of China by Jesuits was often quite scientific and accurate. For example, Martino Martini’s Novus Atlas Sinensis testified the first effort to use Chinese land surveys and present them in a European cartographic format. Du Halde’s Description geographique emulated Martini’s work by presenting detailed maps and city plans drawn by Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville.52 Marcia Reed and Paola Dematte have examined the visual images created by Jesuits in the Qing court, including illustrated prints of classic Chinese books, representations of scientific instruments and cartographies, and intercultural landscapes, in order to investigate and highlight East–West collaboration in art and science.53 This work introduces the earlier cultural, artistic, and scientific exchange between China and Europe through the Jesuits’ activities in China, but also offers the religious and social contexts of the idealized image of China spread by the Jesuits in Europe. Earlier European travelers also participated in constructing imagery that portrayed China as exotic and full of wonder. From 1655 to 57, Johan Nieuhof joined the Dutch Embassy to China led by two of the Dutch East India Company’s overseers, Pieter de Goyer and Jacob Keyzer. He became the first artist to capture Chinese landscape, society and people from observation. Nieuhof used Dutch pictorial conventions to supplemented it with an extended introduction, notes and commentaries, an introduction of the life of Confucius, a comparative chronology of Christian and Chinese history, a map of China, and a genealogical table. 48 For the introduction of Dijian tushuo, see Dematte (2007, p. 40). 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 For the depiction of China by Jesuits, see Reed and Dematte (2007, pp. 148, 154, 188). 53 Reed and Dematte (2007).

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depict Chinese culture as exotic and unfamiliar. Olfert Dapper followed the footsteps of Nieuhof to produce Gedenkwaerdig bedryf in which the illustrations are similar in style in depicting the cityscape and important events during the Dutch embassy. Bernard Picart later absorbed the artistic elements and style from earlier authors, including Martini, Nieuhof, and Dapper, to create an illustrated nine-volume set entitled Ceremonies et coustumes religieuses des tous les peoples du monde.54 All these images emphasize the concept of exoticism in European encounter with China. Jing Sun in his dissertation “The illusion of Verisimilitude: Johan Nieuhof’s Images of China” of 2013 examines engravings in the first Dutch edition of 1665, and asserts that the manuscript held in Paris was created by Nieuhof in Amsterdam and served as the basis for the engravings and the inspiration for later Chinoiserie.55 His study offers the useful methodological approach of tracing the creation process from sketches to prints that proves very important for the analysis of Alexander’s works, as he and his printmakers often altered his drawings when converting them into prints. In addition to European representations of China, imported Chinese objects of porcelains, lacquers, textiles, and wall hangings offered another channel for the European public to view Chinese culture and civilization. In response to the popular taste for Chinese objects, European artists invented a new style of Chinoiserie which adopted numerous motifs from imported objects and combined them with European iconography to construct a highly hybrid decorative form. This form was often related to excessive, superficial, and feminine features. David Porter’s Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe of 2001 analyzes Chinoiserie in architecture, gardens, tapestry, and engravings, and offers discussions of conservative critics of Chinoiserie.56 In discussing the European shift from positive to negative views of China, he treats the images from the Macartney Embassy not as aesthetic creations but as commercial records related to the promotion of trade and the cultural competition. His point is important because he investigates the larger evolutionary pattern behind the shift of British perception of China, and examines how Europeans defined themselves in contrast to China. Porter does not explain the interweaving and overlapping of the trade/political dimensions of the embassy and the large number of visual images produced by the embassy in shaping European perceptions. In his 2010 study, The Chinese Taste in Eighteenth-Century England, Porter examines Chinese taste in the making of English modernity by looking at the ambivalence of English responses to Chinese goods and ideas, such as gardens, porcelains, and rocks. He also argues against the tendency to read exotic luxuries as a celebration of Britain’s rising imperial power. On the contrary, he argues that the Chinese objects “reminded their viewers, of England’s cultural backwardness, material dependency, and relatively late arrival on the world stage.”57 He re-instates China as a power equal

54

For the depiction of China by European travelers, see Reed and Dematte (2007, pp. 142,146, 152). 55 Sun (2013). 56 Porter (2001). 57 Porter (2010, p. 7).

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to the British empire. This more egalitarian perspective negates the traditional Orientalist view of seeing Asian countries as a backward and feminine “Other.” Rather than seeing Chinese taste simply as superficial and excessive, Porter discovers an ambivalent attitude among the British, which is also evident in the visual images made by the embassy. Marked as a transitional event in Sino-British relations, the visual images produced by the Macartney embassy presented the British audience with a more realistic image of China based on empirical observation and scientific investigation. In her study of William Alexander’s China imagery, Frances Wood briefly introduces some examples of his sketches to emphasize that they were based on empirical observations and conveyed accurate information.58 She also notes that Alexander often combined various motifs of figures, landscapes, and architecture into the finished works. Her study is telling since she traces the creation process of a number of finished images. Combining motifs in Alexander’s finished works inevitably results in minor discrepancies, but the scientific approach used to collect and represent these images nonetheless provides a fairly accurate depiction of the subject matter. In another study of Alexander’s work, Stacey Sloboda explains how Alexander borrowed “preestablished visual signs of Chinoiserie” to construct many of his images of China, even though he claimed to depict authentic Chinese culture based on empirical observation.59 While in China, he carefully examined, compared, and drew from life based on empirical observation and sometimes scientific interest. His more fully developed watercolors and published prints often do show the influence of conventions from Chinoiserie and Picturesque aesthetics, but that does not invalidate the scientific elements that often remain within these images. Considering all these visual traditions and influences, Alexander’s images marked a transition from both the idealized images of the Jesuits and the fanciful, exotic images of early travelers and Chinoiserie to a more realistic form of China imagery. Much of this change was due to the more scientific approaches in Alexander’s work.

1.3 The Artistic and Scientific Contexts of the Embassy The embassy’s artistic project was closely related to its scientific project, with images seen as a major way to visualize and disseminate knowledge about China. The embassy’s most prominent artist, William Alexander, was schooled in both art and exploration. Beginning and ending his life in Maidstone in the county of Kent, Alexander first studied painting from 1782 to 1784 under the supervision of Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759–1817), who was later the official draughtsman of Cathcart’s abortive 1787 embassy.60 In 1784, at the age of seventeen, Alexander enrolled in the Royal Academy as a student of painting, training there for seven years, until 1792. 58

Wood (1998). Sloboda (2008, pp. 28–36). 60 For the biography of William Alexander, see Legouix (1980, pp. 5–20). 59

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Recommended by Ibbetson, he then joined the Macartney Embassy, which made his name as a professional artist. Chinese works occupied him throughout the rest of his life, with the publication of Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese in 1814, twenty years after returning from China and only two years before his death. Alexander’s career intersected the broader movement of landscape sketching and painting that revolutionized British art in this period. He befriended Dr. Thomas Monro (1759–1833), a British art collector and patron, as well as the consulting physician to King George III. When Monro lived in Fetcham, Surrey, many artists, including Alexander, met there and went out for drawing expeditions. During one of these expeditions, Alexander befriended the watercolorist Thomas Hearn, who exerted a great influence on him. The “Monro Academy” at Monro’s London home also gave evening classes where Alexander and other painters could examine and copy his collection of paintings and drawings, including the works of older masters such as Canaletto, Gainsborough, and Wilson. In 1799, the great watercolorist Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) organized a sketching club from Monro’s circle, which met at the house of each member in turn. On May 5, 1802, when it was Alexander’s turn, he hosted a group of artists that included Paul Sandby Munn and his brother William Munn. From 1802 to 1808, with the support of landscape painter and diarist Joseph Farington, Alexander was employed as master of landscape drawing at the Royal Military College at Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire. After he resigned from the post, he was appointed as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Antiquities at the British Museum. As a Fellow of the Society of Antiquities, Alexander showed a passion for antiquarian studies throughout his employment at the Royal Military College and the British Museum. He also kept up his interest in topographical paintings, making several extensive journeys to parts of England and producing drawings for topographical books. In 1816, Alexander suffered a brain disease and passed away on July 23 at the age of 49. Alexander’s finished paintings and prints exhibit a mixed style encompassing characteristics of both scientific representation and Picturesque aesthetics. In the late eighteenth century, the Picturesque was established and developed by artists and scholars such as William Gilpin, Richard Payne Knight, and Uvedale Price. British Picturesque landscape painters developed a distinct formula: the adoption of the tripartite structure of the foreground, mid-ground, and background; a preference for roughened, irregular, and varied outlines; soft and harmonious tints; and the inclusion of non-laboring, often lower-class figures like beggars, gypsies, or idle shepherds.61 Barbara Stafford suggests that scientific illustrations stand as an antithesis to Picturesque aesthetics since the former is based on the Baconian empirical tradition whereas the latter embraces an idealized and generalized vision. Patrick Connor has opposed this view, denying any “fundamental conflict between artistic theory and scientific method.”62 In the case of Alexander’s works for the embassy, the mixing of scientific and picturesque elements results in harmonious images, in keeping with Connor’s views. 61 62

Andrews (1989). Cite from Connor (1986).

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Artists first transposed this aesthetic schema onto the English landscape, and then took it to colonial territories of the British empire and foreign countries. Paul Sandby (1731–1809)’s method, applied at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, specifically combined elements of empirical topographical accuracy with the conventions of the Picturesque in order to achieve accuracy in a familiar artistic language. He is well-known for his picturesque landscape paintings of the British highlands, which helped establish a model for military and naval officers who depicted landscapes with accuracy but also in a Picturesque taste. Applied in British colonies, Jeffrey Auerbach proposes that, through the picturesque, British artists rendered exotic landscapes in an integrated way that made the unfamiliar knowable and in keeping with British imperial sensibilities.63 This point of view linked the artistic style of the Picturesque to the imperialist ambition of control within the colonial territories. In contrast to this view, John Crowley in his Imperial Landscapes of 2011 investigates the ways the Britain’s global empire was constructed imaginatively by overseas colonial subjects through the consumption of topographic landscapes. He argues that, after the Seven Years’ War, British artists melded imperial interests with the apolitical appreciation of scenery. He writes “in conjunction with the empire’s militarization, army and naval officers produced much of the topographic art representing Britain’s new imperial landscapes. Yet their images sent home a curiously anti-triumphalist message.”64 The British artists depicted the Chinese landscapes using a similar apolitical approach that reflects how the artists wanted China to be seen, by blending of topographic and picturesque aesthetics. The embassy took a similar approach in its knowledge-building project on China. Although China was different from the colonial territories of the British empire, Alexander used the method of blending the topographic and picturesque aesthetics to demystify China, while also obtaining empirical knowledge about China. Wu Hung examines Alexander’s approach of depicting architectural ruins in his images of China. He uses the example of Alexander’s print of Leifeng Pagoda, which he compares with Alexander’s other English landscapes, to analyze the transference of visual information across national boundaries, arguing that through exploring “Chinese ruins” and the concept of the “Picturesque,” Alexander created a form of global knowledge at the particular moment of the Macartney embassy. Wu also examines the image of decayed Chinese tombs, which he relates to Macartney’s perception of China as an old and backward empire that would easily flounder.65 This global visual language of the picturesque in Alexander’s China imagery played a role in shaping the British perception of China. As noted earlier, the Macartney Embassy was not an isolated historical event, but part of a scientific and imperial trend. Several important scientific expeditions which involved international cooperation and competition were launched in this period, most prominently James Cook (1728–1779)’s three voyages to the South Pacific. Bernard Smith has studied Cook’s voyages, and analyzes an artistic style based on 63

Jeffrey Auerbach (Spring and Summer, pp. 47–54). Crowley (2011, p. 7). 65 Wu (2013). 64

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empirical naturalism, used by the three artists on Cook’s voyages: Sydney Parkinson, William Hodges, and John Webber. The artists had different training backgrounds in art, and experimented with different combinations of techniques in order to work out representations that were not only true to nature, but also catered to the expectation of their British audience.66 In a study focused on the voyage of Endeavor in 1768–1771, Rudger Joppien and Bernard Smith examine the career and role of the artists on the expedition, the many sketches produced at different locations, and the publication of the traveling journal.67 They review briefly the ethnographic tradition in Europe, and how it informed the creation of these sketches, and introduce the three categories of navigational art, human science, and natural history. The Macartney Embassy followed the model of Cook’s voyages, and categorized the images similarly. In addition to the artistic and scientific dimensions of the embassy’s onsite images, its publications after the mission had widespread influence and helped form a range of perceptions of China over the next several decades. In his study of the European tradition of costume books, the scholar Wenqi Zhu concentrated on Alexander’s Costume of China, and examined its techniques of aquatint and hand-coloring. She argues that the book achieved both artistic and commercial goals by creating images that were “empirically accurate, aesthetically pleasing, and economically efficient.”68 On the other hand, Kara Lindsey Blakley examines the artistic influence of Costume of China on the interior designs of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton through the perspectives of semiotics, and argues that evocations of each familiar Chinese motif reflect more intense relations between China and Britain, which results from Britain’s rapid industrialization and desire for Chinese goods. For example, she raises the motif of the pagoda, and argues through miniaturizing, trivializing and bringing it inside, Britain expresses its unstated goal of possessing China.69 While the embassy’s political and ideological impact has been well studied and debated, its scientific aims and achievements have received far less scholarly attention. Banks’ detailed scientific instructions were triggered by the great advancement of science in eighteenth-century Britain. The eighteenth century is recognized as the second great age of European exploration, and historians of science have recently called it the “Age of Science” as well.70 The eighteenth century witnessed a process of “consolidation” and “assimilation” of scientific theories, as Margaret Jacob described it, an era when “scientific knowledge became an integral part of Western culture.”71 There were advances in physics such as in magnetism and electricity; geology and biology took shape; and natural history was revolutionized by a new taxonomy system was laid down by Carl von Linnaeus (1707–1778). The period was also characterized by the democratization of knowledge, where new scientific discoveries reached the public through multiple channels, including prints, pamphlets, encyclopedias, and 66

Bernard (1992). Joppien and Smith (1985). 68 Zhu (2021). 69 Blakley (2018). 70 William et al. (1999, p. 16). 71 Jacob (1997). 67

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live venues. As scientific curriculums took root in European universities, scientific institutes were established, such as the French Academie Royale des Sciences and similar academies in St. Petersburg and Berlin. Gentlemen of science and a small group of women were given access to the Public of Letters and the British government began to employ people with expertise in various scientific and technological fields.72 British scientific elites played a major role in the production of important publications related to global expeditions, and this was especially true of the Macartney embassy. John Gascoigne in his two books of 1994 and 1998 combines the biographical study of Joseph Banks with the institutional history of Britain to examine how Banks’s scientific development intertwined with the socio-economical bodies of the British state, such as the Privy Council Committee for Trade, the Board of Agriculture, the Admiralty, the East India Company, the African Association, the Royal Society, and many more. He traces Banks’ emergence as an adviser to the government for scientific matters, and his patronage networks and political connections, such as the Royal Society, which eventually enabled him to hold great power and influence in the government. Gascoigne examines Banks’s identity as a British landed gentry whose neo-mercantilism informed British imperial policies, and explores the conflict between scientific cosmopolitanism and national competitiveness in the imperial outlook. Banks’s career occurred during the transition of the British state from an oligarchic constitution to a bureaucratic order and his life was intertwined with the development of political, scientific, and commercial institutions which were major agencies in initiating, sponsoring, and promoting the Macartney Embassy. Banks actively participated in various scientifically-inclined clubs of London. He served as a member of the Society of Dilettanti, the Royal Academy, and the Athenian Club, and the most famous Literary Club, where he mingled with Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, George Macartney, and others.73 Banks was so important that David Philip Miller used the concept of a “Banksian Learned Empire” to describe the intellectual circles in London before 1830.74 This group of elites centered around Banks included wealthy gentlemen, doctors, and clergymen who pursued research in natural history, which was combined with the study of classics and antiquarianism. Their scientific research distinguished from other segments of the public who held lesser social status.75 The Macartney Embassy was deeply influenced by scientific elites and their accounts and journals revealed their keen interest in the scientific aspects of the mission. In addition to the Banksian Learned Empire, Miller identifies a group of individuals who aided in establishing the subdivision of science into various disciplines and their associated societies, such as the Geological Society (founded in 1807), Royal Astronomical Society (1820), Zoological Society (1828), and Geographical Society (1830). These institutions were usually sponsored by the British government, 72

For the development of science in the eighteenth-century Europe, see Porter (2003). Gascoigne (2003, p. 71). 74 Miller (1981). 75 Ibid. 73

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and sometimes by the East India and other mercantile companies.76 The embassy’s explorations helped contribute to Britain’s scientific transition from a virtuoso tradition to a more professional system with various specified disciplines.77 Embassy members shared their traveling experiences and scientific activities with like-minded gentlemen in various public spaces, such as coffeehouses and different scientific societies in Britain. The textual and visual records of the Macartney Embassy are in many ways typical of travel accounts popular in the late eighteenth century. These accounts differ from previous exotic or idealized descriptions of foreign lands that lacked empirical observation and accuracy. In the age of Enlightenment, new scientific methods provided theoretical and analytical frameworks for deciphering nature that called for faithful and authentic representation in both text and image. In their illustrations, artists working on these expeditions began to diverge from artistic conventions, pursuing truthful depiction of the great mountains and rivers that impressed them most. For example, the visual rendering of hard rocks and soft clouds became a great concern for the artists, who related them to scientific investigation in geology and meteorology. Barbara Stafford in her classic 1984 study Voyage into Substance discusses the rise and development of an empirical attitude towards nature through the study of language reform in England and France since the early seventeenth century. She proposes that the explorers followed the Baconian tradition of inductive logic, creating accurate representations of the landscape in both verbal and visual forms in their accounts. She examines the “hard bodies” (obdurate objects) and “soft bodies” (ephemeral effects) underlying geological, physical, and chemical theories. Stafford also discusses the aesthetics of the images made “on the spot” with a particular dimension of space and time.78 Among the rich sources she examines from many illustrated travel accounts, a couple examples of Alexander’s landscapes are discussed according to specific aesthetic and scientific theories and methods. Alexander’s representation of Chinese landscapes reveals his adherence to prevailing stylistic trend of scientific representation across national and geographical boundaries. Human science, another new field in the eighteenth century, developed into anthropology in the nineteenth century. In Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains, the authors show that intellectuals of the period were eager to connect natural science with human science. Inspired by the belief that the physical world is operated by an ordered law, they were engaged in the enterprise of discovering the mechanism of human society. David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith provided core writings about human emotions and social economics that laid the foundation of the human sciences.79 During this period, travelers from the Grand Tour and its variants were engaged in collecting both antiquities and ethnological data. Similarly, the embassy collected a large body of ethnographic information, and

76

Ibid. Gascoigne (2003). 78 Stafford (1984). 79 Fox et al. (1995). 77

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produced illustrations of Chinese manners, customs, and costume.80 The Chinese themselves became the object of a new field of study called “a science of man.” Barrow declared himself to be a practitioner of “conjectural history.”81 He collected data on all the peoples on earth and evaluated them on the basis of backwardness and achievement. The embassy the embassy engaged in a great deal of such ethnographic study, including Chinese people, religion, rituals, and law. This exercise in proto-anthropology, however, was slanted to reflect the superiority of the British. In the field of natural history, the 1735 publication of Linnaeus’s The System of Nature launched a new global classification of nature. The gathering of specimens, the building of natural collections, and the naming and classifying of new species became a popular and serious pastime, which was widely pursued by European travelers. Many scholars have argued that the success of the Linnaeus system spurred the formation of travel writing as a genre in which natural history played an important part.82 In these writings, explorers discovered new plants and animals within the Western “scientific sign-system in which all things are allotted a symbolic place in so far as they conform to arbitrary criteria.”83 Mary Louise Pratt argues that the Linnaeus system changed the way Europeans made sense of their place on the planet as she comments that “the naturalist ‘naturalized’ the bourgeois European’s own global presence and authority.”84 She proposes that map-making, circumnavigation, and Linnaeus’s system contributed to a planetary project and a European “planetary consciousness.” This naturalist influence is evident in the Macartney embassy, whose natural historians applied new ideas and systems to the study of China. The embassy is also a perfect example of Bruno Latour’s concept of “centers of calculation,” gathering information about distant lands that could be studied by Europeans back home for further exploits.85 David Mackay similarly proposes that Banks’s collecting enterprise exemplifies European efforts to “systematize and rationalize assessments of the non-Western world” in their global exploration.86 Banks helped recruit the embassy’s key personnel to collect hundreds of plant specimens during the trip, including mulberry trees, silkworms, and tea plants. The images and specimens the embassy brought back were used to classify and systematize knowledge of China, making it familiar and controllable to the British audience. The embassy’s artists also represented Chinese science and technology, a subject of great debate. Peter Kitson examines the role of science in the formation of “Romantic Sinology” and argues that not only texts and ideas but also the exchange of commodities between Britain and China contributed to British knowledge of China. 80

Marshall (1993, p. 15). Ibid. Conjectural history was developed in the 1790s by Dugald Steward, who applied it to the study of humankind. According to it, human society evolves through four stages: hunting, pasturage, agriculture, and commerce. 82 Sample (2004, p. 9). 83 Fulford and Kitson (1998, p. xxiv). 84 Pratt (1992, p. 28). 85 Miller (1996, pp. 21–37). 86 Mackey (1996, pp. 38–57). 81

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He reviews the “Great Question” posed by Joseph Needham, that is, why did China fail to develop modern science? Kitson argues against Latour’s theory of “center of calculation,” which suggests an asymmetry between knowledge of the center and that of the periphery, and proposes that China was not a passive recipient but an active participant in the eighteenth-century world order. He cites Kapil Raj’s study, which sees modernity as a process of historical collisions, negotiations, and compromises as well as Benjamin Elman’s claims on the rise of Chinese modern science on its own terms. Kitson specifically examines Banks’s instructions to the Macartney Embassy to investigate the Chinese manufacture of porcelains and its methods of growing tea.87 The transfer of scientific knowledge went both ways. The British sought to convey advanced scientific methods and apparatus to China, while the Chinese introduced its science and technology to Europe. The embassy’s images depicting Chinese scientific instruments and inventions were part of that exchange.

1.4 Verbal and Visual Sources of the Embassy The Macartney embassy produced a large volume of textual and visual records that affected Sino-British diplomatic relations during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Various embassy members published accounts, reports, and journals. The most important work is George Staunton’s An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, printed by William Bulmer and published by George Nicol in 1797. Nicol was a publisher and bookseller to King George III.88 Joseph Banks, who oversaw planning of the embassy and publication of Staunton’s text, had collaborated with Nicol from 1780 to 1784 in publishing the account of James Cook’s third voyage, which is likely why he chose Nicol to publish the Chinese account.89 Other works from the embassy include John Barrow’s Travels in China of 1804; Aeneas Anderson’s A Narrative of the British Embassy to China in the Years 1792, 1793 and 1794; William Alexander’s and Samuel Holmes’s journals; Hans Christian Huttner’s Nachricht von der Brittischen Gesandtschaftreise durch China of 1800; Proudfoot-Jardine’s A Biographical Memoir of James Dinwiddie of 1868; and Lord Macartney’s journal, published by Helen Robbins in 1908 and J. L. Cranmer-Byng in 1962. Staunton’s and Barrow’s accounts are the most revealing because they include numerous visual images of China. After returning to London from the China journey, William Alexander produced over a thousand onsite sketches and watercolors that later he auctioned twice at Sotheby’s at No. 145, The Strand, Opposite Catherine Street in 1816 and 1817. The first 5-day auction included some of the pieces by Alexander, such as Costume of China, and Picturesque Representation and Manners of the Chinese. Another 10-day 87

Kitson (2013). “William Bulmer” in Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900). 89 Chang (2006, p. 98). 88

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auction included a special session on the seventh day entitled “Oriental Subjects, and c. by Mr. Alexander, during his Voyage to China.” The session included watercolors, sketches, engravings, oil paintings, and maps, among which 21 pieces with Chinese themes sold out.90 The British Library holds three volumes of Alexander’s works which contains 870 pieces (WD959, WD960, WD961) rebound by the Library curators in 1992–94 in the Asian and African Studies Print Room (formerly the Indian Office Library). Volume One and Three contain sketches of the people, cities, scenery of countries, buildings and architecture, ships and boats, while Volume Two contains coastline drawings and seascapes. Among them, 500 pieces are of Chinese subjects, and the other 300 pieces depict what the embassy observed on the journey, such as Portugal, St. Helena, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, etc. Although most of these sketches are unfinished, they provide sources for creating the illustrations of China back in London. An identification number is written on every piece in red or black ink, some with pencil, on the upper middle and the right corner. The British Museum collected an album entitled “Drawings taken in China,1865,” which contains 82 paintings by William Alexander.91 It was bought from Rev. Charles Burney whose grandfather is Dr. Charles Burney, a respected scholar and musician, whom Lord Macartney consulted on music.92 The Paul Melon Center for British Art at Yale University has 46 watercolors, 31 of which are on Chinese subjects. Some are finished pieces and others are unfinished with pencil tracings. Also included in the British Library are a dozen drawings by John Barrow, the embassy’s Comptroller, and Henry William Parish, the Commander of the Artillery, as well as a collection of eighty views, maps, portraits, and drawings produced by embassy members in the Map Collection.93 Alexander’s other works are held many art museums around the world, including 34 pieces at Maidstone Art Museum, 46 pieces at Hong Kong Museum of Art, Victoria and Alberta Museum, Huntington Library, Birmingham Art Museum, Manchester Museum, and some private owners. Alexander’s diary was originally collected by the Maidstone Museum, but in 1979, Edward Hughes brought it into the British Museum and then it was moved to “Western Manuscripts” at the British Library. In his diary, Alexander includes some images of coastlines, ships, maps, and Chinese characters which record his study of Chinese scenery and language. Alexander’s first major work on the embassy was an album of 44 atlas engravings and 14 in-text illustrations for George Staunton’s An Authentic Account of the Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China (1797). He then 90

For the detailed information on the auction items, see Chen (2022). The eighty-two watercolors are held in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum (198.c.1). 92 Chen (2022). 93 The following drawings are held at the British Library: John Barrow, Barrow’s Travels in China and Cochin China; Original Drawings in by Alexander, Daniel etc. (Add. MS33931). Henry William Parish, Maps, Plans, and Sketches of Places and Scenes in China (Add. MS19822). William Alexander, John Barrow, and Henry William Parish, A Collection of Eighty Views, Maps, Portraits and Drawings Illustrative of the Embassy Sent to China Under George, Early of Macartney in 1793 (Cartographic Items Maps 8. Tab. C. 8.). 91

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published additional books privately, including a small album, Views of Headlands, Islands, etc., Taken during a Voyage to China (1798), The Costume of China (1805) and Picturesque Representation of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese (1814). He also provided illustrations for John Barrow’s Travels in China (1804) and A Voyage to Cochin China (1806) which were included in the Royal Academy Annual Exhibitions. On the Chinese side, the Qing court produced over 780 pieces of archival materials about the Macartney embassy that are currently collected in the First Historical Archives in Beijing. The archive was later compiled and published in Selected Historical Materials from the Archives on the English Ambassador Macartney’s Visit to China in 1996. A Qianlong kesi tapestry depicting the Macartney embassy is in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. As a result of a gift exchange, an eightvolume album of British Illustrations from King George III to the Qianlong Emperor survives in the First Historical Archives in Beijing as well as a telescope and pistol in the Palace Museum. Some Chinese art objects, including Qianlong’s own paintings and calligraphy, ceramics, and lacquers, are in the British Royal Collection.94 In its quest for a realistic view of China, the Macartney Embassy served not only as a diplomatic mission, but as a project of scientific investigation. In contrast to the exotic Chinoiserie or utopian perspectives of the Jesuits, the embassy created a more authentic image of China based on scientific and empirical observation in keeping with the development of modern science in Enlightenment Britain. The embassy’s images reflect advancements in marine science, natural history, geography, archaeology, human science, and history of science and technology that enabled the embassy’s scientists and surveyors to examine, classify, and analyze knowledge more accurately. The scientists then collaborated with the artists and draughtsmen to visualize this knowledge through close observation and precise measurement. In doing so, they incorporated China into a global knowledge system that reflected Britain’s imperialist ideas of expansion and control. The images of China the embassy brought back provide a rich historical viewpoint across multiple dimensions. The embassy and its publishers exerted painstaking care in cataloguing, organizing, and interpreting this new information about China, drawing on both observation and picturesque presentation. The artists and draughtsmen on the embassy offered a distinct voice in how China was represented to the British public. Their images were instrumental in influencing public knowledge of China and shifting British attitudes towards China in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. One of the most revealing aspects of the embassy’s documentation is the discordance between the visual images and verbal texts. The imagery is artistically attractive and presents either an appealing or impartial picture of life in China. The accompanying texts, however, present China as a declining and stagnant empire that could only “overawe their neighbors merely by her bulk and appearance.”95 The conflicting

94 95

For specific information on gift exchange, see Harrison (2018, 65–97). Robbins (2010, p. 386).

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perspectives, which reflect the diversity of views among embassy members, engendered an ambivalent attitude towards China in the British public that became increasingly negative attitude over time. China was essentially dismissed as an important country in world where British imperial power reigned supreme. As Lord Macartney stated, “nevertheless, as Great Britain, from the weight of her riches and the genius and spirits of her people, is become the first political, marine, and commercial Power on the globe, it is reasonable to think that she would prove the greatest gainer by such a revolution as I have alluded to, and rise superior over every competitor.”96 In spite of some of the views expressed by embassy members, the overall enterprise was better served by regarding the Qing empire as a sophisticated and equal partner rather than an exotic despotism. The huge effort put into the gift exchange and to chronicling their travels reflect a great deal of respect, in contrast to earlier voyages such as those of James Cook. Rather than defining the relation between the British and Qing empires according to a dominating/dominated model as in Said’s Orientalism, Greg Thomas proposes alternatively a “bilateral and symmetrical model of mirroring and inversion” in which China and Europe were seen as equals.97 Alexander’s works reflect this viewpoint by depicting the sophistication and complexity of China’s civilization and people. His points of interest go beyond the purely scientific and mapping goals of earlier voyages, partly because access to scientific information was severely limited. The embassy was kept under strict surveillance and surveying was forbidden. Anderson wrote that “We entered Peking like paupers; we remained in it like prisoners; and we quitted it like vagrants” to describe the embarrassing lack of freedom that the embassy faced.98 The chapters that follow will explore multiple aspects of the Macartney Embassy and the art it produced. Starting with the historical background on the embassy and the world in which it operated, the book will examine the key events of the embassy’s mission and the images depicting those events. A core focus is the images themselves, how they were created, the knowledge they embody and the attitudes they reflect. These images not only testify the artistic legacy of the embassy but also reflect the shifting perceptions of China in the early and mid-nineteenth century.

References Anderson, Aeneas. 1795. A narrative of the British Embassy to China. London: J. Debrett. Andrews, Malcolm. 1989. The search for the Picturesque: Landscape aesthetics and tourism in Britain, 1760–1800. Andershot, England: Scolar Press. Batchelor, Robert K. 2013. Shen Fuzong. In Oxford dictionary of national biography.https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/95020 96

Ibid. Orientalism defines the Orient as the feminine and exotic Other, he argues a different theory of early modern orientalism that embraces both praises and denigration of the “superior moral economic example.” Thomas (2009, pp. 115–43). 98 Anderson (1795, p. 271). 97

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Bernard, Smith. 1992. Imagining the Pacific: In the wake of the cook voyages. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Bicker, Robert, ed. 1993. Ritual and Diplomacy: the Macartney Mission to China 1792–1794. Paper presented at the 1992 Conference of the British Association for Chinese Studies Marking the Bicentenary of the Macartney Mission to China. London: Wellsweep. Blakley, Kara Lindsey. 2018. From diplomacy to diffusion: The Macartney mission and its impact on the understanding of Chinese art, aesthetics, and culture in great Britain, 1793–1859. Doctoral thesis. University of Melbourne. Britannica Online Database. Entry of East India Company. https://www.britannica.com/topic/EastIndia-Company. Accessed on February 7, 2022. Chang, Xiuming. 2006. The scientific mission of the Macartney’s embassy-centered on the exhibition of gifts and scientific investigation. Master’s thesis. Taiwan Tsinghua University. Chen, Yushu. 2022. Survey of the images of China of the Macartney Embassy in American and European collections. Palace Museum Bulletin 1. Connor, Patrick. 1986. Review of Stafford’s “Voyage in substance.” The British Journal for the History of Science 19 (2). Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1999. A translucent mirror: History and identity in Qing imperial ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press. Crowley, John E. 2011. Imperial landscapes: Britain’s global visual culture 1745–1820. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Dawson, Raymond. 1967. The Chinese chameleon: An analysis of European conceptions of Chinese civilization. New York: Oxford University Press. Dematte, Pao. 2007. Christ and Confucius: accommodating Christian and Chinese belief. In China on paper, European and Chinese works from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, eds. Marcia Reed, and Paola Dematte, 36. Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute. Dictionary of national biography. 1885–1900. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Elman, Benjamin, and Huters Theodore. 1997. The Macartney Embassy, postmodernism, and Chinese history: Comments on Joseph Esherick’s criticism of James Hevia’s work. Twenty-First Century 44: 118–130. Esherick, Joseph W. 1998. Tradutore, traditore: A reply to James Hevia. Modern China 24 (3): 328–332. Ferguson, Donald. 1903. Captain Benjamin wood’s expedition of 1596. The Geographical Journal 21 (3): 330–334. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1775823. Accessed on February 7, 2022. Fox, Christopher, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler, eds. 1995. Inventing human science: Eighteenthcentury domains. Berkeley: University of California Press. Frodsham, J.D. 1964. Chinese and the primitive language: John Webbs’s contribution to 17th century sinology. Asian Studies Journal: 389–408. https://www.asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ02-03-1964/Frodsham.pdf. Accessed on February 7, 2022. Fulford, Tim, and Peter J. Kitson, eds. 1998. Romanticism and colonialism: Writing and empire, 1780–1830, 1998. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Gascoigne, John. 2003. Joseph Banks and the english enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ge, Jianxiong. 1998. Consider something as it stands and not consider something as it stands: I look at the polemics on “Cherishing men from afar.” Twenty-First Century 46: 135–139. Harrison, Henrietta. 2018. Chinese and British diplomatic gifts in the Macartney Embassy of 1793. The English Historic Review 133 (560): 65–97. Hevia, James. 1995. Cherishing men from afar: Qing guest ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hevia, James. 1998. Postpolemical historiography: A response to Joseph W. Esherick. Modern China 24 (3): 319–327. Huang, Yi-Long. 2007. Impression vs. reality: a new investigation on the confrontations of guest ritual between China and Britain. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology Academia Sinica 78 (1): 35–106.

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Jacob, Margaret C. 1997. Scientific culture and the making of the industrial West. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joppien, Rudger, and Bernard Smith. 1985. The art of captain cook’s voyages. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kitson, Peter J. 2013. Forging romantic China: Sino-British cultural exchange 1760–1840. New York: Cambridge University Press. Legouix, Susan. 1980. Image of China: William Alexander. London: Jupiter Books Publishers. Luo, Zhitian. 2002. Preface of the translation. In Cherishing men from afar, ed James Hevia, 1–31. Social Sciences Literature Press. Mackerras, Colin. 1989. Western images of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mackey, David. 1996. Agents of empire: The Banksian collectors and evaluation of New Lands. InVisions of empire: Voyages, Botany, and representations of nature, eds. David Philip Miller, and Peter Hanns Reill, 38–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcuse, Harold. Translation of Qianlong’s letter to George III in courses pages. University of California, Santa Barbara. https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/2c/texts/1792Qianl ongLetterGeorgeIII.htm Accessed on January 29, 2022. Marshall, P.J. 1993. Britain and China in the late eighteenth century. In Ritual and diplomacy: The Macartney mission to China, 1792–1794, ed. Robert A. Bickers. London: Wesweep Press. Miller, David Philip. 1981. The Royal Society of London 1800–1835: A study in the cultural politics of scientific organization, Ph.D. thesis. University of Pennsylvania. Miller, David Philip. 1996. Joseph Banks, empire, and ‘centers of calculation’ in late Hanoverian London. InVisions of empire: Voyages, botany, and representations of nature, eds. David Philip Miller, and Peter Hanns Reill, 21–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peyrefitte, Alain. 1993. The immobile empire. London: Harvill. Porter, David. 2001. Ideographia: The Chinese cipher in early modern Europe. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Porter, David. 2010. The Chinese taste in eighteenth-century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Porter, Roy. 2003. The Cambridge history of science: Vol. 4: The eighteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial eyes: Travel writing and transculturation. London and New York: Routledge. Pritchard, Hampton. 1973. The crucial years of early Anglo-Chinese relations. Rainbow-Bridge Book Co. Qin, Guojing, and Huanting Gao. 1998. Emperor Qianlong and Macartney. Beijing: Forbidden City Publishing House. Rawski, Evelyn. 1996. Presidential address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The significance of the Qing period in Chinese history. The Journal of Asian Studies 55 (4): 829–850. Robbins, Helen Henrietta Macartney. 2010. Our first ambassador to China: An account of the life of George, Earl of Macartney with extracts from his letters, and the narrative of his experiences in China, as told by himself, 1737–1806, from Hitherto unpublished correspondence and documents. New York: Cambridge University Press. Stafford, Barbara Maria. 1984.Voyage into substance: Art, science, nature, and the illustrated travel account, 1760–1840. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Sample, Joseph Clayton. 2004. Radically decentered in the Middle Kingdom: Interpreting the Macartney Embassy to China from a contact zone perspective. Ph.D. thesis. Iowa State University. Singer, Aubrey. 1992. The lion and the dragon: The story of the first British embassy to the court of the Emperor Qianlong in Pekin 1792–1794. London: Barrie & Jenkins. Sloboda, Stacey. 2008. Picturing China: William Alexander and the visual language of Chinoiserie. British Art Journal IX (2): 28–36. Spence, Jonathan. 1998. The Chan’s great continent: China in Western minds. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

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Starr, G.A. 2010. Defoe and China. Eighteenth-Century Studies 43 (4): 435–454. Stevenson, Caroline M. 2021. Lord Amherst’s ‘special mission’ to the Jiaqing Emperor in 1816. Australia: AUN Press. Sun, Jing. 2013. The illusion of verisimilitude: Johan Nieuhof’s images of China, Ph.D. thesis. Leiden University. Teng, Ssu-yu, and J.K. Fairbank. 1954. China’s response to the West: A documentary survey, 1839– 1923. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Thomas, Greg M. 2009. Yuanming Yuan/Versailles: Intercultural interactions between Chinese and European palace cultures. Art History 32 (1): 115–143. Thomas, Greg. 2016. Evaluating others: The mirroring of Chinese civilization in Britain. Civilization and nineteenth-century art: A European concept in global context, ed. David O’Brien, 5. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Wang, Tseng-Tsai. 1993. The Macartney mission: A bicentennial review. In Ritual & diplomacy, ed. Robert Bickers. London: Wesweep Press. William, Clark, Jan Golinski, and Simon Schaffer. 1999. The sciences in enlightened Europe. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wood, Frances. 1998. Closely observed China: From William Alexander’s sketches to his published work. The Electronic British Library Journal. http://www.bl.uk/eblj/1998articles/pdf/article7. pdf. Accessed on June 9, 2018. Wu, Hung. 2013. The Macartney Embassy and the birth of ‘Chinese ruins. The Forbidden City (10). Zhang, Longxi. 2001. Other discussion of other discussion. Twenty-First Century 65: 90–91. Zhang, Shunhong. 1990. British views on China during the time of the embassies of Lord Macartney and Lord Amherst (1790–1820). Doctoral dissertation, London University. Zhang, Shunhong. 1993. Historical anachronism: the Qing court’s perception of and reaction to the Macartney Embassy. In Ritual & diplomacy, ed. Robert Bickers. London: Wesweep Press. Zhu, Wenqi. 2021. Negotiating art and commerce in William Alexander’s illustrated books on China. Master thesis, University of Hong Kong.

Chapter 2

Gift Exchange and the Diplomacy

Gift exchanges were a crucial part of the diplomatic missions among European nations or with other foreign countries, and the Macartney embassy to China was no exception. The gift exchange between the embassy and the Qing imperial court reflected the distinct purposes and interests of the two parties and set up a competitive framework for establishing superiority or dominance, particularly in the area of scientific knowledge. The Macartney Embassy saw the gift exchange as a reciprocal process in which they “gave” in order to “receive” economic and political benefits, while the Qing imperial court saw gift exchange as part of the tribute system, which involved a demonstration of subordination to the emperor. The embassy gave priority to art objects and scientific instruments because they believed that these objects would represent Britain’s social progress and the philosophical outlook of the Enlightenment while catering to the interests of the Qianlong emperor, who was a long-term patron of art and science. The British gifts failed to convey notable scientific progress to the Qing court so their intended meaning was lost and they became mere examples of insignificant exotica in the eyes of Qianlong. The Chinese gifts shared a similar response by the British.

2.1 British and Chinese Concepts of Gift Exchange Anthony Colantuono in Diplomacy of Art argues that rather than seeing diplomatic art as playing a peripheral role in political actions, it transmits sensitive messages and serves as an “instrument of diplomatic persuasion, even of seduction.”1 Nancy Um and Leah Clark agree with this argument and further propose that it is a productive path “by privileging objects of exchange as crucial and active tools of cross-cultural mediation and communication, while also looking closely at visual representations

1

Colantuono (2000, p. 54).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_2

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of encounter.”2 With the Macartney Embassy, the gift exchange sought to provide vital information to underpin political, economic, and cultural negotiations between the two parties involved in this historical meeting. The gifts presented to the Qianlong emperor represented the highest achievements of British art and science, and the Manchu emperor reciprocated with a large number of gifts considered to be of far greater value.3 In total, the British gifts numbered over 590 pieces, and the Chinese gifts were more than 3000 pieces.4 The action of giving and returning gifts did not happen on neutral ground in this cross-cultural encounter, but should be interpreted within the distinct historical, political, and cultural contexts of Great Britain and the Qing empire. The exchange was not merely a symbolic display of generosity and friendship, but a reflection of differing purposes resulting from each party’s imperial ideologies and ambitions. The different meanings ascribed to the gift exchange and to accompanying rituals such as the kowtow resulted tension and conflict between the two parties. In the context of early modern Europe, gift exchange was regarded not only as a friendly gesture to the host ruler but also was aimed to “pave the way for the serious negotiations to follow.”5 Following the Westphalian concept of international order, the British regarded themselves and the Qing empire as equal counterparts with sovereignty in the world, and viewed the gift-giving as a reciprocal process supporting balanced negotiations. Although some scholars, including French sociologist Marcel Mauss, see social relations as the primary focus of official gift exchanges, the Macartney Embassy’s gifts pertained mostly to the economic functions on both the British and Qing sides. A key goal on the British side was to awe the Qing imperial court with gifts that reflected their great achievements in art, science and social progress in order to further advance their commercial interests. Some of the gifts also served as samples of the British products they sought to promote in order to expand their market in China. Staunton explained the selection of gifts this way: “Specimens of the best British manufactures, and all the late inventions for adding to the conveniences and comforts of social life, might answer the double purpose of gratifying those to whom they were to be presented, and of exciting a more general demand for the purchase of similar articles, in the way of purchase, from the Company or private merchants.”6 This British were directly seeking to open the sealed gate of the Chinese market. By contrast, eighteenth century Manchu emperors regarded gift exchange as part of the tribute system which regulated not only diplomatic and political contacts, but also cultural and economic relations. In this system, a hierarchical order among China and other nations was maintained in contrast to the European concept of sovereign equality among nation-states. China was ranked the highest, and secondary 2

Um and Clark (2016, pp. 3–18). For specific figures of the Chinese expenses of hosting the embassy, and of the British gifts, see Barrow’s Travels in China, pp. 605–608, quoted in Harrison (2018, p. 80). 4 For the number of gifts, refer to Qin (1996, pp. 51–73). 5 Jansson (2005, pp. 348–370). 6 Staunton, (1798, Vol. 1, p. 43). 3

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states were ranked by how they were culturally similar to China.7 Foreign embassies usually presented “tributes” as examples of their countries’ resources or the products of their artisans. Gift exchange became a type of Chinese foreign trade, known as the “tribute trade,” in which the Manchu emperors usually responded to “tributes” with gifts in greater amounts.8 With regard to the Macartney Embassy, as Henrietta Harrison argues, the English word “tribute” does not have the same connotation in Chinese. The equivalent Chinese word “gong” did not necessarily indicate an inferior position of gift-givers, and was not a politically sensitive term to Qianlong.9 But the embassy was concerned about the gifts being labeled as “tribute” with its European implications of “tax and submission.”10 William Alexander copied the inscription of the Chinese character “gong” on some banners which were prominently displayed on the barges that were carrying the British embassy probably from Tianjin to Beijing. Although Macartney decided to ignore the matter, Staunton later dismissed this designation, and deemed it not conforming to European practice.11 The different perceptions of gift exchange reflect both the terms for negotiation and competition between the two parties, and the difference of two imperial ideologies and ambitions. The British emphasis on their achievements in art, science, and technology manifested their pride in the achievements of the Enlightenment. The Qing court’s response emphasized the wealth and power of the empire. Each Chinese gift was carefully selected in order to equal and even outweigh each of the British gifts. And by assuming British gift-giving was paying tribute, the court tried to incorporate the British empire into its system of Lordship that James Hevia termed “hierarchical inclusion.”12 Therefore, Qianlong’s view of the gift exchange was in direct conflict with the British conception of sovereign equality, and manifested a superior/inferior relation defined by the Qing imperial court.

2.2 British and Chinese Gifts of Art and Science Both the British embassy and the Qing imperial court prepared gift lists containing all the items that they gave to each other. The British gift list was written in both English and Latin and is collected in the British Library. Staunton recorded the list in his official account. A Chinese translation of the British list was also recorded in the

7 Kang (2010). In this hierarchical system, for example, Korea and Vietnam were ranked higher than Japan, the Ryukyus, Siam, and the Burmese kingdoms because they adopted Chinese ideas more. 8 On the relation between the tribute system and diplomacy, see Kang (2010). 9 See Harrison (2018, p. 78). In the article, she proposes that although “gong” in the eighteenth century was to give to a superior, it could also mean to reward an inferior in ancient texts. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 76. 12 Hevia (1995, p. 246).

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edict of August 6, 1793 collected in the First Historical Archives in Beijing.13 The Chinese gift lift was recorded in an edict of June 19, 1793 and is held in the same archive.14 There are also four scrolls recording the Chinese gifts in the collection of the Royal Archives. Two of them are original edicts written in Chinese, Manchu, and Latin, and the other two are the gift lists written in Chinese and Latin.15 Ming Wilson in the Victoria and Albert Museum of Art has published an English translation of this Chinese version.16 The original British lists in the British Library contain 60 articles that include a planetarium, telescope, celestial globe, terrestrial globe, barometer, air pump, cannon, musket, pistol, sword blade, model of a British ship, ornamental vase, Park burning lens, chandelier, wool and cotton, prints, and paintings.17 According to the Chinese translation of the lists in the edict that re-organized the British gifts, these gifts consisted of over 590 pieces in 19 categories.18 The total value of the British gifts reached at £15,610, consisting of those taken over from the Cathcart Embassy valued at £2486 and new acquisitions valued at £13,124.19 The cost of these gifts was paid by the EIC, which hoped to benefit from the China trade if the negotiation proved successful. In the gift list, the British King stated the standard for selecting gifts to be “only such articles as might denote the progress of science, and of the arts in Europe, and which might convey some kind of information to the exalted mind of his Imperial Majesty, or such other articles as might be practically useful.”20 His words indicate that the gifts consist of two kinds: items of intellectual and cultural value to impress Qianlong, and ‘practical’ items that could be traded. As for the reciprocal Chinese gifts, according to the Qing archives, the total number of Chinese gifts reached over 3000 pieces in 130 kinds, including textile, silk, porcelain, lacquer, jade, paintings and calligraphy, tea, food, and so on.21 These gifts reflect the trading relation between China and Britain since most of them were Chinese export items that were very desirable in the British market. The Chinese gifts were provided and managed by the Imperial Household Department, who received large sums of income from the customs office in Canton.22 In addition to the cost of these gifts, the Imperial Household also undertook the accommodation and traveling expenses of the 95 of the Ambassador’s suite and other sailors, soldiers, artillerymen and crews who accompanied the embassy, totaling some six hundred men. The cost 13

Qin (1996, Archive no. 170, p. 121). Ibid. (Archive no. 137, p. 96). 15 Royal Archives (2022), online source, see reference. 16 See Ming (2017, pp. 33–42). 17 For the description of the 60 items of British gifts, see IOR/G/12/20 ff.596–664, 1792, British Library. 18 Qin (1996, Archive no. 170, pp. 121–124). 19 For the values of the British gifts and the numbers of transporting vehicles and people, see Berg (2006, pp. 268–288). 20 Staunton (1798, Vol. 2, p. 492). 21 Qin (1998, p. 120). 22 Harrison (2018, p. 71). 14

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of hosting the embassy, excluding the gifts, was 519,000 taels or approximately £173,000, while the cost paid by the British, including gifts, was £80,000.23 After Qianlong issued the edict for bestowing gifts on the embassy, the Grand Secretariat and Grand Council composed the gift list for presentation to the emperor. After the emperor approved, the list was handed in to the Imperial Household Department, which was responsible for preparing the gifts. Gifts often came from the six storehouses in the Storage Service of this Department, where many items were preserved for the use of the imperial families.24 As Harrison argues, both parties could use gifts to move towards a negotiated outcome across differences in culture and the related language barriers, smoothing tensions formulated by the long-term exchanges between China and Europe.25 In an attempt to remove cultural barriers, the embassy brought prime examples of British art and science, including a planetarium; clocks, watches and automata; Wedgwood porcelains; and British prints and paintings. Their goal in presenting these objects was to impress the imperial court with high achievement in art and science, and cater to the interest of Qianlong who was well known for his patronage of European Jesuit artists and scientists in the court. The first item on the British list was a set of instruments consisting of a decorated planetarium, a clock, and another astronomical instrument whose construction and function are described in detail. Staunton (1798) quoted the list as follows: The first and principal consists of many parts, which may be used distinctly, or be connected together, and represents the universe, of which the earth is but a small portion. This work is the utmost effort of astronomical science and mechanic art combined together, that was ever made in Europe. It shows and imitates, which great clearness and with mathematical exactness, the several motions of the earth, according to the system of European astronomers; likewise the eccentric or irregular motions of the moon around it; and of the sun, with the planets which surround it, as well as the particular system of the planet, called by Europeans, Jupiter, which has four moons constantly moving about it, as well as belts upon its surface. And also of the planet Saturn, with its ring and moons; together with the eclipses, conjunctions, and oppositions of the heavenly bodies. Another part indicates the month, the week, the day, the hour, and minute, at the time of inspection. This machine is as simple in its construction, as it is complicated and wonderful in effects, nor does any so perfect remain behind in Europe. It is calculated for above a thousand years; and will be long a monument of the respect in which the virtues of his Imperial Majesty are held in some of the remotest parts of the world.26

It is likely the European Jesuits in the court helped to translate the description into Chinese.27 It says that the instrument shows the general view of stars, sun, moon, and the earth. They add that the size of the earth is tiny and all the planets move according to their order, resembling that of the sky and earth. The description also 23

Barrow (1806, pp. 605–608). Barrow calculated the embassy cost of the Chinese side according to the figures given by Wang Daren. 24 Qin (1998, p. 135). 25 Harrison (2018, p. 67). 26 Cited from Staunton (1798, Vol. 2, 492–494). 27 Qin (1996, Archive no. 584, 356). The Chinese archive mentioned that the English themselves were responsible for translating the gift list. However, Harrison proposed that, according to the mode of address of the embassy, the only possible translators were Jesuits in the court.

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Fig. 2.1 William Alexander, the planetarium, the principal gift to the emperor of China, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

indicates that instrument shows when the solar and lunar eclipses would happen, and that it can indicate the time by the year, month, date, and hour shown on the clock. As the culmination of astronomical discoveries over many years, it is a fitting gift to the Great Emperor of China.28 The translation is shorter than the original English version due to the omission of detailed technical information and the flattery of the Qianlong emperor. The Jesuits in the court might have manipulated the translation because of competition among Europeans and the hostility towards the British embassy.29 A detailed drawing by Alexander shows the planetarium and the clock along with another gift instrument that was called Tianwen dili dabiao or Astronomy Geography Clock in Chinese. This set consisted of three major parts: bulanidaliweng or planetarium orrery (right), a clock (middle), fulaikeduer (left) in Alexander’s drawing collected in the British Library.30 (Fig. 2.1). The instruments represent the most advanced scientific achievement in Europe of the period. The planetarium orrery was designed according to the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. Before this gift, Qianlong had already collected two orreries that were illustrated in the Illustration of Ritual Instruments of 1759. One of them was created by the Englishman Richard Glynne in 1755, and the other is unknown.31 The two previous instruments are still held in the collection of the Palace Museum. 28

Ibid. (1996, Archive no. 170, 121). For the relations between the embassy and other Jesuits in the court, see Peyrefitte (1993, 132– 135). 30 For the identification of astronomical instruments, I have consulted with Mr. Xiao Jun, the associate director of the Beijing Ancient Observatory, in Sept. 12, 2017. 31 Chang (2006, 39). 29

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This large planetarium orrery was in fact made in Germany, not Britain, and was known as a Hahn Weltmaschine. Phillipp Mattaus Hahn began designing it in 1772, but died in 1790 before completing it. It was then sold and ended up in London where it was put it on public exhibition. A pamphlet that was most likely published in connection with this exhibition contains an engraving of the machine.32 Later it was sold to the EIC for £600, and brought on the embassy. Qianlong showed no interest in these machines and returned them to Europe. They have been held in the collection of the Germanisches National Museum in Nuremberg since 1877.33 Before the instrument was sent to China, it was decorated in imperial yellow and embellished in gilt and enamel in an elaborate style carried out by London’s famous clockmaker Benjamin Vulliamy. The cost of the decoration was £656.13.34 Both Benjamin and his father Justin Vulliamy were excellent clockmakers who were under the patronage of the British royal family. Benjamin received the Royal Appointment in 1773, and worked as the King’s Clockmaker under George III. Vulliamy clocks were of great value for their sophisticated technology and superb decoration. Alexander’s drawing reveals that the instrument combines both Chinese and western motifs. On the top of the clock is a sculptural representation of a pineapple, a common motif in Chinoiserie, and on the base are images of European musical instruments, the lyre and trumpet. The decoration on the planetarium orrery is a female nude figure in the cartouche formed by floral patterns. On the top is a belt of decoration with Zodiac motifs that relate to European astronomy. The overall artistic effect is highly elaborate, reminiscent of the Rococo style prevailing in Europe. The idea of decorating astronomical instruments might have been inspired by the Beijing Observatory built by European Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest in 1673. It consisted of bronze astronomical instruments decorated heavily with elaborate Chinese motifs, such as dragons, in their association with the “son of heaven.” An illustration of the Beijing Observatory was included in The Astronomia Europaea by Ferdinand Verbiest of 1687. The astronomical instruments were decorated with clouds and dragons.35 Since the image had been widely circulated in Europe, Macartney and the gift-preparers must have had the opportunity to see it. In addition, Beauvais tapestries were among the gifts presented to Qianlong; one of these, made after a design by Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay, depicts the Manchu emperor with Jesuit astronomers and their decorated astronomical instruments.36 The British surely believed that these elaborate and flamboyant gifts would impress the Qing court. The British in the eighteenth century favored fanciful design, especially in the Chinoiserie style, which was immediate, sensual, and feminine in bright colors and intricate patterns. The borrowing of Chinoiserie motifs, such as the pineapple, and the elaborate Rococo designs obviously not only showed the British craze for Chinese fashion, but also revealed craftsmen’s endeavor 32

“The Chronometer and Planetarium System” (2022) Romantic Circles, online source. Ibid. 34 Chang (2006, 36). 35 Chapman-Rietschi (1994, 24). 36 Smentek (2016, 87–109). In 1766, a set of chinoiserie tapestries by Francois Boucher were presented to the Qianlong Emperor on behalf of the French administration. 33

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to please the Manchu ruler. The combination of art and science was meant to elicit the Qing court’s appreciation of British science by presenting it in a familiar artistic language. The Chinoiserie decoration on the machines did not carry any negative evaluation of superficiality and fancifulness that was often associated with this aesthetic by many British intellectuals, but reflected a serious attempt to find common ground and promote cross-cultural interaction. Clocks, watches, and automata were another category of scientific gifts in Chinoiserie design that were intended to cater to Chinese tastes. In the late seventeenth century, the majority of clock-makers who entered the trade were English, among whom James Cox of London was the most prominent. He designed a variety of clocks that were later made in the shops of Geneva and London. From 1769 to 1774, Cox also published catalogues, six of which survive, and he opened his museum in 1772.37 In fact, in the imperial collections of the Qianlong emperor there were already a great number of clocks and automata. Those from Cox turned out to be especially popular when they were first introduced to the Chinese imperial court in the mid-1760s. Simon Harcourt-Smith’s 1933 catalogue of clocks and watches in the Palace Museum and the Wuying Dian in Beijing lists eighteen clocks by Cox.38 Many of Cox’s works for the Chinese emperor were created in a style of Chinoiserie. These pieces were designed originally to cater to Chinese tastes in order to spark more exports to China, as he stated his goal to be: To open, for the nation, the source of this article of commerce, so as thereby to render the luxury of the East, tributary to the Industry of our Artists, and to retrieve to this country some part, at least of those immense sums which the products and manufactures of Asia are incessantly draining from Europe.39

The Cox family also traded directly with China. The son of James Cox, John Henry Cox, arrived in Canton in 1781, where he established the shop of James Cox and Son which lasted until at least 1787. Several of their products made their way into the collection of the Qianlong emperor.40 When Macartney consulted the two Chinese interpreters about gifts, they advised selecting objects according to “Eastern manners,” such as “extraordinary pieces of ingenious and complicated mechanism, set in frames of precious metal, studded with jewels, and producing, by the means of internal springs and wheels, movements apparently spontaneous.”41 Captain William Mackintosh, who commanded Hindostan, supplied numerous clocks and watches to the embassy. He had been engaged in private trade, and saw the embassy as a good chance to conduct trade in Beijing. Although Macartney restricted Mackintosh’s commercial activities to Canton, he nevertheless managed to make £7480 from the voyage.42 37

Pagani (1993, p. 184). Ibid. (1993, p. 183). 39 Ibid. (1993, p. 186). 40 Ibid. (1993, p. 188). 41 Staunton (1798, Vol. 1, p. 42). 42 Pagani (1993, p. 196). 38

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39

One reason European clocks were considered such good gifts was that they were regarded by the Chinese as a “linkage of imperial power and prestige.”43 During the Ming Dynasty, Matteo Ricci presented a clock to the Wanli emperor to gain admission to the imperial court. Under the patronage of the Kangxi emperor, the Office of Clock Manufacture was established in 1723, where clock makers, painters, and engravers worked together to produce highly-decorated clocks. During the Qianlong period, eleven Jesuits built clocks in the imperial workshops. Clocks appealed to Chinese interests because of their relationship with science, enabling a high degree of accuracy in measuring time and space. In the eighteenth century, timepieces such as clocks were used for accurate determinations of longitude for ships at sea. For example, the timepiece used on James Cook’s second voyage of 1772 helped to plot the location of the ship.44 By presenting the clocks and automata, the embassy tried to cater to the Chinese taste while impressing the court with Britain’s highly advanced science and technology. Wedgwood porcelains were another example that combined British art and science in a way they felt would appeal to the Chinese, who were well-known for being the inventors and masters of this kind of object. There are no records and descriptions of what kinds of Wedgwood wares were presented to Qianlong, but Staunton’s account described “all the eyes, fixed on the vases, which were among the finest productions of the late Mr. Wedgwood’s art.”45 In the eighteenth century, Europeans, especially British, became obsessed with collecting Chinese porcelains, which served as a symbol of wealth and a way of knowing “the Orient.” This also inspired European artisans to invent their own porcelains, such as German Meissen and French Sèvres. Trying to compete with the Germans and French, the Englishman Josiah Wedgwood conducted scientific experiments in pottery making and became a master of pottery techniques that enabled the success of the creation of Wedgwood wares, which aimed to mimic true porcelain using an alternative material.46 Staunton further comments that “these specimens of the beauty of European manufacture were universally acknowledged and extolled.”47 Staunton comments that “of porcelain every Chinese is a judge,”48 and the embassy clearly believed the Wedgewood pieces would impress the Chinese. The embassy also sent the Qianlong emperor a set of books, among which were three works by William Chambers: Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils; Gardens and Buildings at Kew; and Civil Architecture. Like Wedgwood ware, these works reflected the great interest of the eighteenth century British artists in China. The British public had great enthusiasm for Chinese goods, including tea, fine porcelains, lacquerwares, and wallpapers, and other design 43

Elman (2005, p. 207). For the introduction of clock making in the imperial court of the Qing period, see Elman (2005, pp. 206–208). 45 Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 163). 46 For an introduction to Wedgwood ware, see online Encyclopedia Britannica (2022). 47 Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 163). 48 Ibid. 44

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elements. Chambers was an important British architect, and well-known for his design of the pagoda in Kew Garden. From 1740 to 1749, he had traveled to China on three voyages of the Swedish East India Company. The drawings that he produced were acclaimed for their authenticity owing to his empirical observations of actual Chinese works of art and architecture. Chambers’ many illustrations of Chinese architecture and interior design demonstrate a high degree of empirical exactness, even though they also have some embellishment typical of Chinoiserie art. In addition to Chambers’ emulation of Chinese architecture, the embassy also presented many illustrated books on British architecture and interior design, such as Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus, or the British architect, containing the plans, elevations, and sections of the regular building, both public and private, in Great Britain, with variety of new designs, Jan Kip’s and Leonard Knijff’s Britannia illustrata, or views of several of the royal palaces as also of the principal seats of the nobility and gentry of Great Britain, and so on. The European-style buildings in the Yuanmingyuan palace that Qianlong had ordered to be designed by Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione showed the emperor’s curiosity in European art and architecture. In the palaces of the Yuanmingyuan, Qianlong exhibited his magnificent collection of European scientific and mechanical objects. It was also in the Hall of Audience in the Yuanmingyuan that the embassy’s gifts were displayed. Greg Thomas argues that Qianlong mirrored the European kings for his interest in the art of “Europeennerie” as reflected in the Yuanmingyuan.49 It was quite possible that the British King had known of Qianlong’s predilections for things European, and therefore decided to send the pictures of British palaces and architecture to the Qing court. The British clearly believed that the best way to impress the Qing court was with objects reflecting a highly-developed science and technology while also displaying the familiar artistic language of Chinoiserie. Chinoiserie did not convey the negative implications noted by many British intellectuals, and was considered a useful tool for removing cultural barriers. The Qing court responded to the embassy with a great number of gifts that outweighed the British gifts in value. These were also carefully selected, but were chosen in order to correspond to the British gifts and show the great power and prestige of the Qing empire. The Grand Council drew up the gift list for the British King and the embassy as early as June 19, 1793. The items included porcelain, lacquer, paper, tea, textiles, jade, which were major Chinese exports that were very popular in England. Not only did Royalty avidly collect them, but also the upper and middle classes showed a great passion in acquiring Oriental products. Alexander recorded the gifts that he himself received in his journal. For example, on September 30, 1793, he wrote “Those who remained at Pekin while his Excellency was in Tartary also received presents from the Emperor. Mine were 3 Rolls of Silk, a hard lump of Tea having the shape and size of a bowl, a handsome China cup, an embroidered purse and a fan.”50 49 50

Thomas (2009, pp. 115–43). Legouix (1980, 12).

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Fig. 2.2 William Alexander, A scepter of agate, given by the Emperor of China to Sir G. Staunton, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

During the embassy, Qianlong distributed these gifts for the British King and the embassy members on various occasions that were recorded in detail in the archives of the First Historical Archives in Beijing. Porcelains had often been sent as gifts from the Manchu emperors to foreign envoys, and King George III received a great number of porcelains of various kinds, in foreign colors, blue-and-white, five-color, unglazed green, and unglazed red, in bowls, plates, and vases, and other forms.51 Lacquers constituted another major category of Qianlong’s gifts. Aeneas Anderson described them as “a number of callibash boxes of exquisite workmanship, beautifully carved on the outside, and stained a scarlet colour, of the utmost softness and delicacy.”52 Identified lacquers in the Royal Collection in Buckingham Palace include a pair of “Dragons among clouds” precious boxes. On this piece, five-clawed dragons emerge from the waves, signifying its imperial function. Since Chinese lacquers were one of the major export products on the British market, the presentation of this kind of gift showed Qianlong’s generosity, kindness, and friendliness towards the embassy. Jades were another important gift, despite the fact that embassy members failed to appreciate their value because they defined jade as agate with little value. George Staunton describes the jade ruyi that the Qianlong gave to Macartney as “upwards of a foot in length, and curiously carved into a form intended to resemble a scepter” and “considered as emblematic of prosperity and peace.”53 William Alexander carefully observed the jade scepter, and depicted its image in one of his drawings (Fig. 2.2). In this drawing, Alexander magnified the image of the jade sceptre against a blank background so that the viewers can focus on the object in detail. He depicted its volume in three-dimensions that give a sense of heaviness. The subdued green color adds an elegant effect. 51

Qin (1996, Archive no. 137, 96–106). Royal Collection Trust (2022), online source, see reference. 53 Staunton (1798, Vol.3, 233). 52

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Fig. 2.3 William Alexander, A brocade bag, a mark of extraordinary favor, 1973, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

In Alexander’s depiction of the purse called a hebao given by Qianlong to the young Staunton after he learned the boy could speak some Chinese. The visual representation of the purse matches Staunton’s description as “being yellow silk, with blue embroidery, and some Tartar characters worked into it.”54 (Fig. 2.3). The depiction of the purse is highly detailed with embroidered patterns and delicate colors. The bestowal of these gifts by Qianlong was intended to extend his imperial favor the British guests. Qianlong’s most important gift for George III was a curio box. He owned a collection of such boxes that are now preserved in the National Palace Museum in Beijing. They were used to hold jades, ceramics, and other items, reflecting the emperor’s love of collecting and his sophisticated taste. In presenting it to Macartney, he boasted of its great value through ages. Qianlong’s words were recorded as follows: Deliver this casket to the King your master, with your own hand and tell him, though the present may appear small, it is, in my estimation, the most valuable that I can give, or my empire can furnish; for it has been transmitted to me through a long line of my predecessors, and is the last token of affection which I had reserved to bequeath to my son and successor; as a tablet of the virtues of my ancestors, which he had only peruse, as I should hope, to inspire him the noble resolution to follow such bright examples; and as they had done, to make it the grand object of his life to exalt the honour of the Imperial throne, and advance the happiness and prosperity of his people.55

54 55

Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, 235). Cited from Aeneas (1797, p. 154).

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These words expressed Qianlong’s imperial ideology, in which he presided as the universal ruler over the China-centered world order. By bestowing the curio box, which he saw as the token of affection to his successor, Qianlong intended to incorporate the British empire into his own conception of the ruling system. In doing so, he extended his benevolence to the British empire, which he saw as a “lesser kingdom” and reinforced his empire’s prestige and exalted self-image. However, when Lord Macartney reported the gift to Henry Dundas on November 9, 1793, he interpreted this box merely as “a Token of His Friendship to His Majesty.”56 The contrasting perceptions between giver and recipient reveal the deep cultural divide between the two nations. In response to the British prints, the Qianlong emperor gave the embassy prints of battle scenes and hydraulic works as well as his own paintings and calligraphy. These gifts expressed his identity as both a military Manchu commander and a Confucian ruler. The battle prints, produced by Jesuits in the court, depict Qianlong’s military campaigns in China’s inner provinces and along the country’s frontiers. They were used to celebrate the victory of the emperor and glorify his rule. Early prints like those depicting the suppression of the Hui tribes were engraved by French artisans and then sent back to China. Later members of the imperial court began to produce prints on their own under the direction of Jesuit artists, such as the “Pictures of Jinchuan” which were presented to the British embassy.57 Qianlong was also an avid art collector, painter and calligrapher keen on including himself among the literati. The bestowal of his own art represented his personal grace and sincerity and the gifts overall conveyed military power and cultural enlightenment. The British gifts placed a greater emphasis on science and technology and included a chandelier or lustre, barometer, telescope, burning lens, air pump, camera obscura, and more. The chandelier used the recently invented Argand lamp, which improved on the conventional oil lamp with cylindrical wick which channeled air to increase the intensity of the light.58 Argand formed a partnership with William Parker and Matthew Boulton, who offered advice on selecting gifts for the embassy. This expensive chandelier costing £840 was produced by William Park and Son.59 The barometer was invented in 1643 by Evangelista Torricell, an Italian physicist and mathematician. The barometer used a tube that was set into a basin of mercury, where the column’s height fluctuated with changing atmospheric pressure. In the late eighteenth century, European naturalists always carried a barometer, pluviometer, thermometer, hygrometer, anemometer, and other instruments to aid their survey of distant lands.60 In Macau, Macartney bought the Herschel reflector from Henry Browne, and the burning lens of William Parker from Captain Mackintosh at the

56

IOR/G/12/92, p. 83, Macartney to Dundas 9 November 1793, cited in Harrison, “Chinese and British Diplomatic Gifts,” p. 86. 57 Qin (1998, pp. 119–136). 58 Chang (2006, p. 39). 59 Ibid. (2006, p. 41). 60 Ibid.

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cost of £3582, which he believed would also attract the Qianlong emperor.61 Also included in the gifts were “useful things” collected from the northern industrialists as requested by Lord Macartney. Mathew Boulton and Samuel Garbett were responsible for making an extensive collection of low-priced articles from Birmingham, Manchester, and surrounding towns, such as hardware and sword blades, with the aim of contributing to their sales in China. The EIC paid for the expense of making this collection.62 The artistic and scientific gifts were chosen impress the recipients and represent the giver’s self-image, but they reveal very different approaches to cross-cultural communication. In Britain, the scientific and industrial instruments represented the enlightened ideal of social progress, and were decorated in the Chinoiserie style that were believed to appeal to the Chinese sensibilities. The Qing imperial court followed the tradition of presenting porcelains, silk, tea, and lacquers to foreign envoys, item that were not only part of the tribute trade, but also a demonstration of wealth and prosperity.

2.3 Collecting and Exhibiting the Gifts The exhibition of the British gifts at Yuanmingyuan was another important historical event through which we can perceive Chinese attitude towards the British and their science. Rather than understanding the philosophical outlook that these gifts conveyed, the Qing imperial court dismissed them as western curios and exotica. Some earlier scholars believed that Qianlong failed to appreciate the value of British science, and thus lost the opportunity to develop Chinese science. However, this by no means suggests that Qianlong was not interested in Western science, considering his long-term patronage of science and his special attention to the British gifts at the beginning of the mission. One reason for the indifferent reception was that Qianlong already owned similar objects or had not realized the differences between the British gifts and the objects in his collection. Another reason was that the primary goal of the Macartney Embassy was not to disseminate scientific knowledge, but to use science to attract the imperial court in order to establish trading and diplomatic relations with China. The Qing court paid great attention to the gifts at the very beginning of the embassy. When Macartney’s ships arrived on the sea outside Tianjin, the Administrator at Tianjin, Qiao Renjie, and Military Commander at Tongzhou, Wang Wenqiong, boarded the ship and asked for the gift list in order to present it to the emperor.63 On July 27, 1793, the Viceroy of Zhili, Liang Kentang and the Manchu Chief and Salt

61

For this specific information, see Cranmer-Byng (1962). Berg (2006, pp. 268–288). 63 Qin (1998, p. 100). 62

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Administrator at Tianjin, Zhengrui, received a Chinese translation of the British gift list, which described the names and functions of the gifts.64 In order to avoid any damage to the gifts, Qianlong issued permission to the embassy to sail directly to Tianjin, and then travel to Beijing via Tongzhou.65 Since the large British ships could not enter the inner sea of China, the embassy members and their gifts had to be transported by Chinese barges to the Baihe, and then they transferred to boats which sent them directly to Tongzhou. From Tongzhou to Beijing, the gifts were loaded into 600 packages and later carried into Peking by 90 wagons, 40 carts, 200 horses, and 3000 coolies.66 On August 23, 1793, the embassy finally arrived in Beijing, where they first resided in Hongya Garden in Haidian, a residence on the outskirts of the Yuanmingyuan (Garden of Perfect Brightness), where Qianlong required eight gifts to be exhibited. As Macartney requested, the embassy was later transferred to the inner city of Beijing, and lived in a residence that had been recently confiscated from a former Canton hoppo.67 During their stay at the Hongya Garden, the embassy was instructed to go to Rehe to join the celebration of Qianlong’s birthday with their gifts. Several embassy members, including Dinwiddie, Barrow, Scott, Petitpierre, Alexander, and others were required to remain in Beijing and help with the assembly and installation of the gifts.68 Meanwhile, Qianlong also accepted the proposals of court Jesuits to observe and study the process of installing gifts so that they could repair and reassemble them when the British left. According to the archives of the Imperial Household Department, the gifts brought to Rehe included boxes of the prints of British portraits and cities, tapestries and textiles, horse saddles, guns, and telescopes. Those left behind included stands, various cannons, mechanical chairs, carriages, and a ship model. The objects to be exhibited in the Yuanmingyuan palaces were the planetarium, a pair of Vulliamy’s clocks, a pair of lustres, a pair of globes, an orrery, Wedgwood’s ware, and some hardware.69 King George III was an enthusiastic collector of scientific instruments and a supporter of scientific presentations in his own court.70 In keeping with the king’s desire to impress the Manchu emperor, the embassy members planned to display these objects inside the main audience hall, with the terrestrial globe and the celestial global on each side of the throne, the chandeliers hung from the ceiling, the planetarium

64

Ibid. Ibid. (1998, p. 107). 66 Ibid. (1998, p. 108). 67 Peyrefitte (1993, p. 152). 68 Qin (1996, Archive no. 717, 562). 69 Ibid. (1996, Archive no. 720, 563). 70 Morton and Wess (1993). It is a catalogue for a collection of scientific instruments at Science Museum London. It also describes the context in which these objects were commission by British King George III, and gave much information on the craftsmen and the scientific life in the eighteenth century London. 65

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Fig. 2.4 William Alexander, plan of the hall of audience and Throne, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

positioned at one end of the hall, and the Vulliamy clocks, barometer, Wedgwood porcelains, and Fraser’s orrery at the other end.71 One of Alexander’s drawings shows the space of the hall and the arranged plan of the gifts: the red rectangle in the top center represents the imperial throne surrounded by stairs on the front, right, and left sides (Fig. 2.4). While all the objects were numbered with letters and figures, no specific information was provided for what they represented. The drawings are in fact a type of diagram in which the objects were depicted in a two-dimensional plane indicating the size of the hall. On the margin of the picture, Alexander recorded that the main space was 109 ft long, 40 ft wide, and 21 ft high. Alexander carefully observed the interior decoration and the objects in the Hall of Audience and adjacent courts at Yuanmingyuan. He depicted the stairs with carved pattern of the serpentine dragon in a sketchy manner, while representing the water jars and imperial throne in detail based on direct observation (Fig. 2.5). In one of his watercolors, he depicts the table that held the letter from Qianlong to Macartney. In the final publication of Staunton’s account, a print of the plan of the Hall of Audience by John Barrow shows the actual arrangement of the gifts. Unlike the draft sketches, all the gifts were set up on the left side of the imperial throne (Fig. 2.6). According to Staunton’s account, the principal eunuch declared an order from Qianlong that all the gifts were to be placed at one end of the hall so that Qianlong could view them from the throne without the trouble of turning his head.72 As a result, all the gifts are shown placed on the left side of the throne. The print represents a ground plan of the hall with an aerial view from above, with the left side of the throne numbered from one to seven. The planetarium was placed in the middle, showing its great importance. On either side of it stood a pair of Vulliamy’s clocks and an orrery and two tables were set up to display the Wedgwood porcelains and other hardware, with two pairs of lusters and globes closer to the throne.

71 72

Ibid. Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 320).

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Fig. 2.5 William Alexander, plan of the hall of audience which contained the presents, one of the gold jars, the Emperor’s letter on this table, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

At the exhibition of the gifts in the Yuanmingyuan on Oct. 3, 1793, Qianlong expressed an indifferent attitude to some of the gifts. For example, he commented on William Parker’s burning lens that “objects such as these were useful only for the amusement of children.”73 Similar comments can be seen in Alexander’s journal: “We hear from Deodati the Italian missionary that the Emperor had seen the presents of which he had spoken lightly, intimating that some were fit only for the amusement of children.”74 However, Qianlong was quite interested in military weaponry, 73 74

Proudfoot (2010, p. 52), cited in Chang (2006, p. 53). Alexander (1791–1794, p. 26), cited in Chang (2006, p. 52).

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Fig. 2.6 John Barrow, plan of the hall of audience and the adjacent courts in the emperor gardens at Yuen-min-yuen (reproduced from The Authentic Account, 1797), engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

especially the model of the warship HMS Royal Sovereign. He asked a few questions about it, such as the construction of the warship, and shipbuilding industry in England, but received no clear answers due to confused translation, and therefore, lost interest.75 He also watched the firing of cannons, but disagreed since it was against his principle of benevolence.76 He did show a fondness for some of the gifts, which he commissioned the artisans in the Imperial Household Department to decorate or mount for his collection. The archives of the Imperial workshop provided his 75 76

Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 324). Ibid.

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detailed instructions to make boxes for certain items, such as jewelry, scissors, and knives, and wooden frames for the paintings.77 Earlier scholarship has emphasized that Qianlong showed little enthusiasm for these gifts due to his lack of interest in European science. However, according to Macartney’s journal, the embassy found spheres, orreries, clocks and musical automata that were much better than the gifts they had brought in the pavilions of the Yuanmingyuan.78 In one of his edicts, Qianlong commented that the planetarium that the embassy presented was similar to the instruments produced by the Imperial Household Department, and to him, it was not the extraordinary, but a commonplace object.79 The president of the board of Work, Jin Jian also reported that the celestial and terrestrial globes were no different from those exhibited in the Leshou Hall, the planetarium was similar that in the Jingfu Palace though less exquisite in ornament on the pedestal, the barometer was like the thermometer, and the chandelier was the same as the glass lamp in the water gardens.80 The court had also already obtained a reflecting telescope from the East India Company.81 After viewing Qianlong’s own collection, the embassy was too nervous to present the less impressive objects to the emperor. They abandoned the plan to show these, and later sold them in Canton. Other items, such as the chemical instruments and the model of a steam engine, were given to James Dinwiddie, who made a fortune by conducting scientific demonstrations with these objects in India.82 This evidence indicates the limitations of the scientific dimension of the expedition. While many of the recent inventions were as new to the British industries as to the Manchu imperial court, such as the model of the steam engine, it is unreasonable to conclude that Qianlong failed to introduce European science to China. The Kangxi emperor was well-known for his ardent interest in science, and Qianlong sustained this interest, though he showed more passion for collecting objects of arts and crafts. Moreover, Qianlong’s attitude might have come from the competing ambitions between the two imperial empires. He was unwilling to accept the embassy’s boastful statements about the gifts, and downplaying their value could have been a political strategy. After the embassy left China, most of the British gifts remained in the emperor’s private collection as exotica, while the Chinese gifts shared the same fate in Britain.83 The British scientific objects failed to convey the philosophical outlook and spirit of the Enlightenment that the embassy had intended, while the symbolic meaning of Chinese gifts faded and disappeared with the passage of time. The British and the Qing empires were both expanding, and their reactions to the gift exchange reveal their equal yet competing imperial ambitions. The British 77

Qin (1996, Archive no. 731–735, pp. 571–574). Cranmer-Byng (1962, p. 125). 79 See the archive in Qin (1998, p. 100). 80 Ibid. 81 Harrison (2018, p. 83). 82 Elman (2005, p. xxxiv). 83 For more information on the fate of Chinese and British gifts, see Harrison (2018, pp. 91–97). 78

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embassy promoted the diplomacy in keeping with the Westphalia concept of international order, while the Qing imperial court maintained the tradition of the Chinacentered tribute system. These different notions of dealing with foreign relations collided from the very beginning, and the embassy’s high expectations for its gifts ended with their dismissal as mere curios. In spite of the failure of the British gifts in achieving their intended goal, the embassy remained convinced of the importance of science in the exchanges between the two parties. The scientific gifts, some of which were well received, were intended to convey the philosophical outlook of the British Enlightenment while catering to the Qianlong emperor’s long-term interest of western science. The display and demonstration of these instruments and experiments clearly fell short of the mark. However, the fact that Qianlong showed little interest in the gifts did not indicate that China had abandoned the quest for scientific advancement, as some scholars argue. Both sides were aware that the embassy’s goal was to spread scientific knowledge, but to establish diplomatic relations with China. Science was merely a tool to that end. Art was another important element of the British gift set, since it catered to the Chinese taste and visual sensibilities. The Chinoisere decoration of the scientific instruments, the porcelains, and the prints with Chinese motifs and themes were intended to attract the emperor and his court since they were believed to emulate Chinese models and did not carry negative connotations. The representation of European architecture and interior design in the British prints catered to Qianlong’s enthusiasm for things European. The mirroring of British Chinoiserie and Chinese “Europeeneire” sought to generate a cross-cultural dialogue between two equal empires by sharing similarities with each other’s imperial culture. The gift exchange revealed the subtle yet vital negotiation between two parties who were trying to impress each other and compete for advantage. The response to the objects during reception at Rehe revealed the conflicting views between the British embassy and the Qing imperial court.

References Alexander, William. 1791–1794. A journal of the Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China, 1791–1794, journey of a voyage to Pekin in the Hindostan E. I. M. Accompanying Lord Macartney. London: British Library. Anderson, Aeneas. 1797. An accurate account of Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China. London: Vernor & Hood. Barrow, John. 1806. Travels in China: Containing descriptions, observations, and comparisons, made and collected in the course of a short residence at the imperial palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a subsequent journey through the country from Pekin to Canton, in which it is attempted to appreciate the rank that this extra-ordinary empire may be considered to hold in the scale of civilized nations. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies. Berg, Maxine. 2006. Britain, industry and perceptions of China: Michael Boulton, ‘useful knowledge’ and the Macartney Embassy to China, 1792–1794. Journal of Global History 1: 268–288.

References

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Chang, Xiuming. 2006. The scientific mission of the Macartney’s Embassy-centered on the exhibition of gifts and scientific investigation. Master’s thesis. Taiwan Tsinghua University. Chapman-Rietschi, P.A.L. February 1994. The Beijing ancient observatory and intercultural contacts. Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 88 (1). Colantuono, Anthony. 2000. The mute diplomat: theorizing the role of images in seventeenthcentury political negotiations. In The diplomacy of art: Artistic creation and politics in seicento Italy, ed. Elizabeth Cropper. Milan: Nuova Alfa. Cranmer-Byng, J.L., ed. 1962. An embassy to China: Being the journal kept by Lord Macartney during his embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung 1793–1794. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Elman, Benjamin. 2005. On their own terms: Science in China, 1550–1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Encyclopedia Britannica. http://academic.eb.com.eproxy2.lib.hku.hk/levels/collegiate/article/Wed gwood-ware/76411. Accessed on February 12, 2022. Harrison, Henrietta. March 2018. Chinese and British diplomatic gifts in the Macartney Embassy of 1793. The English Historical Review 133 (560). Hevia, James. 1995. Cherishing men from afar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Jansson, Maija. 2005. Measured reciprocity: English ambassadorial gift exchange in the 17th and 18th centuries. Journal of Early Modern History 9 (3/4): 348–370. Kang, David C. 2010. East Asia before the West: Five centuries of trade and tribute. New York: Columbia University Press. Legouix, Susan. 1980. Image of China: William Alexander. London: Jupiter Books Publishers. Ming, Wilson. Jan–Feb 2017. Gifts from Emperor Qianlong to King George III.Arts of Asia 47 (1): 33–42. Morton, Alan, and Jane Wess. 1993. Public and private science: The King George III collection. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pagani, Catherine. 1993. Eastern magnificence and European ingenuity: clocks of late imperial China. Ph.D. thesis. University of Toronto. Peyrefitte, Alain. 1993. The immobile empire. London: Harvill, 1993. Proudfoot, William Jardine. 2010. Biographical memoir of James Dinwiddie: Embracing some account of his travels in China and residence in India. Kessinger Publishing, LLC. Qin, Guojing, and Huanting Gao. 1998. Emperor Qianlong and Macartney. Beijing: Forbidden City Publishing House. Qin, Guojing. 1996. Selected historical materials from the archives on the English ambassador Macartney’s visit to China, ed. No. 1 Historical Archives in Beijing, 51–73. Beijing: International Culture Press. Royal Archives. Principle objects bestowed on the King 1792-4. https://www.royalcollection.org. uk/collection/themes/trails/the-macartney-embassy-gifts-exchanged-between-george-iii-andthe-qianlon-11. Accessed on February 12, 2022. Royal Collection Trust. https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/10823/covered-circular-box. Accessed on February 12, 2022. Smentek, Kristel. 2016. Chinoiserie for the Qing: A French gift of tapestries to the Qianlong Emperor. Journal of Early Modern History 20 (1): 87–109. Staunton, George. 1798. An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, vol. 1. London: W. Bulmer and Co. for G. Nicol. The chronometer and planetarium system. Romantic Circles at https://www.rc.umd.edu/gallery/chr onometer-and-planetarium-system. Accessed on February 12, 2022. Thomas, Greg. 2009. Yuanmingyuan/Versaille: Intercultural interactions between Chinese and European palace cultures. Art History 32 (1). Um, Nancy, and Leah R. Clark. 2016. The art of embassy: Situating objects and images in the early modern diplomatic encounter. Journal of Early Modern History 20: 3–18.

Chapter 3

The Diplomacy Underlying the Historical Encounter

The Macartney Embassy artists created several paintings of the embassy’s imperial audience that reflected the British perspective, but failed to acknowledge that the host country viewed the event according to their own traditions in dealing with foreigners. The Qianlong emperor regarded himself as the universal ruler of a multiethnic empire that was the center of the world, and saw the British envoys as tributebearers, while the British regarded themselves as envoys of a superior civilization. The Macartney Embassy sought to promote an emerging modern diplomacy based on the Westphalian concept of international order that recognized state sovereignty and mediation between nations. The Qianlong emperor maintained the concept of a China-centered world order in which he assumed his role as the universal ruler.1 The artworks each side created were forms of political propaganda aimed at persuading viewers to embrace their divergent positions through the use of distinct visual effects.

3.1 British Images of the Reception When Europeans sent embassies to distant countries, they often recorded their observations in both text descriptions and visual images. The eighteenth century British artists who were part of these exploratory ventures sought to make faithful depictions of the people, landscapes and events they encountered in order to convey knowledge of foreign lands. In spite of the artists’ goal of objectivity, their “documentary” images are not neutral, but reflect the perspectives and interests of British explorers. In particular, these images were often used as political propaganda to glorify the achievement of global exploration by the British empire.

1

For the introduction of modern diplomacy, see Ivor Roberts, Satow’s (2009, pp. 10–11). Roberts propose that it was the Congress of Vienna of 1815 that codified the concept of modern diplomacy concretely.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_3

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Fig. 3.1 The approach of the Emperor of China to his tent in Tartary to receive the British Ambassador (reproduced from The Authentic Account, 1797), engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

The embassy used a defined process to create the prints it disseminated to the British public, building from sketches to finished watercolors. The images and textual observations were based on a collaboration among scientists, engineers, and artists that emphasized the importance of empirical observation and accurate recording. The scientists played a key role in obtaining precise measurements and used rigorous methods to diagram the findings. Underlying this scientific approach, however, was a set of assumptions that skewed the information to serve the political interests and goals of the mission. For example, the embassy portrayed the encounter with the Qianlong emperor as a meeting between equals in order to persuade the British public that China could be a good trading partner, when, in fact, the mission failed to establish a trade relationship. Currently there are eight visual representations of the imperial audience by the embassy members. Among them are two drawings by Parish collected in the British Library and six watercolors by Alexander that are collected in the India Office Library, the Martyn Gregory Gallery, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Birmingham City Art Gallery, the Royal Asiatic Society of London, and the British Museum.2 The print of plate 25 in Staunton’s account of 1797 was based on the version in Indianapolis, and was engraved by the book illustrator and engraver James Fittler, the marine engraver to George III.3 (Fig. 3.1). 2 3

See Legouix (1980, p. 60). Ibid.

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The embassy’s formal reception took place in the imperial garden of Rehe. Located far northeast of Beijing, Rehe was the summer capital of the Qing empire, consisting of the famous Mountain Resort Villa and Eight Outer Temples. Built by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, it was a large complex of imperial gardens, palaces, and temples where the emperors celebrated birthdays and received foreign visitors. The meeting between Lord Macartney and the Qianlong emperor was held on September 14, 1793, the emperor’s birthday. When embassy was informed that they would meet the Qianlong emperor and the date was set, Macartney and ninety-one embassy members set off from Beijing, in the company of Qing officials, arriving at Rehe on September 8.4 Qianlong was already there, and according to Staunton’s account, he had observed the procession of the embassy from the complex’s hills.5 The embassy was housed in the Mansion of Prince Tong on the south end of the town of Rehe.6 The official artist Thomas Hickey and the draughtsman William Alexander were not included in the ambassador’s party to Rehe. They were ordered to help with the installation of gifts in the Yuanmingyuan with several other embassy members and were confined to a closely guarded house. In his journal, Alexander expressed his disappointment at being left behind: “This to me was a most severe decision…That the artists should be doomed to remain immersed at Pekin during this most interesting Journey of the Embassy.”7 Lacking direct observation of Rehe, Alexander had to rely on drawings made by Lieutenant Henry William Parish in order to create pictures of Rehe. Parish was not merely an artillery officer but had been trained to take measurements and to make plans and sketches for military purposes. As Matthew H. Edney writes, the scientific gaze “claims to be a naturalistic gaze” which “creates ‘topographic drawings,” and to “portray physical features in a precise and correct manner” was “a prized skill for army and engineer officers and featured prominently in the military education of the period, where it was closely allied to mapmaking and reconnaissance.”8 Parish’s two drawings were based on information that must have been carefully recorded on site. The first is a plan of the meeting location based on accurate observation and measurement, and the second is a type of “topographic drawing” portraying the physical features of the landscape in a precise manner under a naturalistic gaze (Figs. 3.2 and 3.3). Both drawings reflect a scientific approach typical of military drawings based on empirical observation and precise measurement. In the first drawing showing the plan of the tent and ritual of the ceremony, Parish drew to a scale in which ten yards was used as one standard unit in order to measure the length of the tents and the procession (approximately 106 m). The imperial tent is represented as a round circle in which stands a rectangular throne, and the embassy’s position is indicated to the right of the imperial tent as one approaches (E), while on 4

Qin (1998, p. 66). Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 206). 6 Qin (1998, p. 69). 7 Alexander’s Journal, cited in Legouix (1980, p. 11). 8 Edney (1997, p. 55). 5

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its opposite side is an embassy from Pegu (a small country within Burma). Parish also recorded the positions of musical instruments (D), tents containing gifts (F), and the large frame of fireworks (L). All the objects and queues of figures are represented by geometric shapes and horizontal and curved lines. The other drawing by Parish shows a side view of the ceremony in a threedimensional setting, from a distant point of view. It appears to be based on the diagram because the scale and position of each object corresponds with that on the diagram. As in the plan, the tent is positioned at the right, with two lines of people stretching to the left, and beside them, near the viewer, are three tents of accommodation and two tents containing presents. The event is set against a background landscape of high mountains and dense trees, which appear to have come from Parish’s direct observation if compared with the actual landscape. In this watercolor, Parish used ink pen to delineate the outlines of the imperial tent in a side view, and queues of standing figures in a sketchy manner. Patches of light ink were applied to the rocks to indicate their hard texture, with deeper dots to suggest the vegetation. Along the right edge of the watercolor are shown several tall trees which function as a frame, and a winding road leads to and merges with the trees in the distance. Being absent from the meeting, Alexander had to rely on these two drawings and verbal descriptions by embassy members to achieve a documentary quality in his watercolors. In the watercolor collected in the British Library, which is probably the earliest, Alexander followed the exact arrangement of the ceremony in Parish’s drawings, with the imperial tent standing on a grass plain with a line of soldiers, officials, and foreign visitors lining each side. What makes it distinctly different from Parish’s drawings is that the whole event is set up like a stage with the frontal view of the imperial tent, inviting the viewer’s direct gaze into the scene (Fig. 3.4).

Fig. 3.2 Henry William Parish, sketch of the plan of the tent of the audience in Wanshuyuan, or the Garden of Ten Thousand Trees as prepared for the introduction of the British Embassy, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

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Fig. 3.3 Henry William Parish, emperor’s arrival at the ten in Wanshuyuan or the garden of ten thousand trees on the morning of the British Ambassador’s introduction, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

Qianlong is depicted sitting on a sedan chair carried by sixteen soldiers, marching from the left side to the right. All the figures are shown standing while being received by the emperor. The Macartney Embassy is seen standing near the entrance of the imperial tent among Chinese officials. The members of the British embassy stand out from all the other figures, who are dressed in Chinese clothing. Based on this watercolor, Alexander created a finished version in 1796, which is collected in the Royal Asiatic Society. He transformed the earlier draft into a more finished work in which architecture, figures, ritual objects, and landscape are carefully delineated with delicate ink lines filled in with mellow colors (Fig. 3.5). The variants of ink lines provide a three-dimensional rendering of the objects’ shapes. The gentle effect of the painting reinforces the pleasant and harmonious atmosphere of the environment. It also creates a narrative not present in the first version. The biggest change is that in the earlier version, the embassy is shown standing on the right side near the imperial tent, but in the later version, they are shown in a more prominent position in the right corner in the foreground of the picture. Alexander here shows the twelve embassy members standing outside the tent and waiting to be received by Qianlong, which makes it look like the British are dignified guests considered equal to their hosts. According to the Qing archive, the embassy was formally received by Qianlong in the imperial tent of the Garden of Ten Thousand Trees on September 14, 1793.9 9 Qin (1996, Archive no. 4, p. 2). According to this item or archive, Qianlong received Lord Macartney and Sir Staunton, and bestowed them the gifts of ruyi in the Garden of Ten Thousand Trees on September 14, 1793.

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Fig. 3.4 William Alexander, The Emperor of China receiving the Ambassador at Jehol, Tartary, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

Fig. 3.5 William Alexander, The Emperor of China receiving the Ambassador at Jehol, Tartary, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Museum

Another sketch by Alexander in the collection of the British Library depicts the reception of the embassy inside the tent, based on Staunton’s textual records and the artist’s imagination (Fig. 3.6). In this image, drawn with pencil and light ink, all the figures, including Chinese officials and the British embassy, are shown standing around the imperial throne. The

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Fig. 3.6 William Alexander, The Emperor receiving the Embassy, with key to its members, 1793, ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

depiction of Qianlong was probably developed from a portrait, showing him sitting on the imperial throne. On the left side of Qianlong stand the embassy members, who are individualized and labeled with letters referring to their names. This depiction shows the superb skill of the artist since he used only very sketchy lines to differentiate each member. Macartney is shown bent on one knee, and presenting the letter from the British King on the platform up the stairs. Staunton recorded the moment in his account: The Ambassador, instructed by the president of tribunal of rites, held the large and magnificent square box of gold, adorned with jewels, in which was enclosed his Majesty’s letter to the Emperor, between both hands lifted above his head; and in that manner ascending the few steps that led to the throne, and bending on one knee, presented the box, with a short address, to his Majesty.10

Alexander developed this sketch into a more detailed watercolor in which the position of Lord Macartney is replaced by the young Staunton. The image captures the moment when Qianlong gave his purse as a gift to the boy (Fig. 3.7). Staunton described the gift in his account: Either what he said, or his modest countenance or manner, was so pleasing to his Imperial Majesty, that he took from his girdle a purse hanging from it, for holding areca nut, and presented it him. Purses are ribands of the Chinese monarch, which he distributes as a reward of merit among his subjects, but his own purse was deemed a mark of personal favor,

10

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 231–232).

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Fig. 3.7 William Alexander, Qianlong presenting a purse to George Thomas Staunton inside the imperial tent at Jehol, date uncertain, watercolor on paper. Source Wiki commons according to the idea of Eastern nations, among whom anything worn by the person of the sovereign is prized beyond all other gifts…11

While the initial sketch shows the emperor leaning on the back of the throne in an arrogant pose, the final version depicts him extending his upper body forward towards the boy, giving a sense of benevolence and kindness. According to Susan Legouix, the watercolor was commissioned by one of the Stauntons. It belonged to Miss Gertrude Lynch-Staunton before it was purchased from Colnaghi, London, for the Huntington Library and Art Gallery in 1957.12 Although there are variations in the how the participants are portrayed, Alexander records the setting using scientific approaches, exemplifying the underlying spirit of collaboration. Artists, engineers, and scientists worked together closely reflecting, the intimate connection between art and science in British activities of global exploration. Joseph Banks emphasized the importance of empirical accuracy, as Farington commented in his diary: “Accuracy of drawing seems to be a principal recommendation to Sir Joseph.”13 At the same time, Alexander manipulated reality in order to serve the embassy’s political aims. Therefore, the images were a balanced compromise between empirical observation and political imagination. Another aspect of Alexander’s empirical approach is his careful study of the manner and costume of each figure. Two sketches portray Macartney and Staunton wearing red gowns with elaborate and heavy ornaments in order to demonstrate his 11

Ibid. (798, Vol. 3, pp. 234–235). Legouix (1980, p. 60). 13 Joseph Farington, The Farington Diary (1793–1821), Vol. 1, December 12, 1793, cited in Gascoigne (1994, p. 72). 12

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Fig. 3.8 William Alexander, Portrait of Lord Macartney, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

regard for “oriental customs and ideas.” According to Staunton’s account, Macartney was “habited in a richly embroidered suit of velvet, adorned with a diamond badge and star, of the Order of Bath,” and Staunton “being an Honorary Doctor of Laws of the University of Oxford, wore the scarlet gown of that degree.”14 (Figs. 3.8 and 3.9). An engraving in Staunton’s account shows a close-up view of Macartney who was wearing the costume for the reception (Fig. 3.10). 14

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 231).

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Fig. 3.9 William Alexander, Portrait of George Staunton. 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

For the representation of the ritual, Alexander not only relied on Parish’s plan and sketch, but also consulted other available visual sources, including Jacques Phillippe Le Bas’s print of 1765.15 (Fig. 3.11). The print is the last in a series of sixteen “Conquests of the Emperor Qianlong” commissioned by Qianlong to be created by European printmakers in 1765. The sources of these works were copies of paintings of Jesuit artists working in Beijing made by the finest printmakers at the court of Louis 15

Legouix (1980, p. 15).

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Fig. 3.10 Portrait of Lord Macartney, 1797, engraving. Source Wiki Comms

XV from 1767 to 1774 under the direction of Charles-Nicolas Cochin. While Canton merchants paid for the copper plates and two hundred sets of prints to be delivered to China, a few of the prints were retained in Paris, which is likely where Alexander had the opportunity to examine them.16 This particular print was developed from Castiglione’s painting of the victory banquet in Ziguangge in Beijing. Although the setting was in Beijing, Castiglione borrowed the pictorial composition from his earlier depiction of the court banquet in the Wanshuyuan of Rehe (Fig. 3.12). This painting showed the court banquet of May 1754 in which the Qianlong emperor received one of the Mongolian tribes led by Sancheling who submitted to the rule of the Qing empire in Rehe.17 Compared with these two works, Alexander’s watercolor clearly seems to have borrowed the placing and style of the imperial tents, and the 16

For information on the prints, see https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/395643 (accessed on April 6, 2018). 17 Yang (1982).

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depiction of the emperor carried by sixteen soldiers, combined with the surrounding topographical landscapes of Rehe.

Fig. 3.11 Jacques Philippe Le Bas, The Emperor giving a victory banquet in Peking to the officers and soldiers who distinguished themselves in Battle, based on the painting by Castiglione et al. (1765), engraving. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Fig. 3.12 Qing court painters, Picture of tribute-bearers, date uncertain, kesi tapestry. Image courtesy of National Maritime Museum in Greenwich

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Although Alexander relied on the scientific representation of Parish, his paintings nevertheless were used as propaganda in order to promote the desired image of the British. For example, according to the Qing archives, the embassy was actually received by the Qianlong emperor among many other foreign envoys and embassies, such as those from Qinghai, Mongol, and Burma.18 However, Banks tells the artist to describe this picture as: “The approach of the Emperor to the great Tent in which the Ambassador had his first introduction in Tartary. The Emperor is carried in a chair by 16 men proceeded by princes of the blood, and an immense crowd of Mandarins and drawn up in two marches to receive him.”19 The instruction sets out the requirements that Alexander followed in his depiction of the British reception as the only foreign embassy outside the imperial tent. In addition, according to the military official Guan Shiming of the Grand Council, who had accompanied the emperor to Rehe, Macartney did perform the kowtow in spite of his refusal at first.20 However, in the British images, the embassy members are shown standing around the Qianlong emperor while Macartney presents the letter from King George III in person with one knee down. The contradictory descriptions of performing this ritual betrayed the different political aims of each party. The British depictions convey the impression that the Macartney Embassy was treated as an equal partner in seeking to establish diplomatic relations with the Qing empire. The Qing court’s apparent acceptance of British etiquette reflects what James Hevia calls Britain’s “Eurocentrically imagined world.”21 It conveyed the idea that China was part of the British international system and raised the hope that China could be a diplomatic, commercial, and even political partner, even though the embassy fell far short of these lofty goals.

3.2 The Qianlong Silk Tapestry Qing artists also created visual representations of the Macartney Embassy, the kesi tapestry being the most prominent. The tapestry appears to be based on a painting that was created before the arrival of the embassy, because it represents earlier scientific instruments made by the Jesuits and depicts Europeans with mixed national identities. The choice of this depiction to represent the Macartney Embassy reflects the Chinese goal of undermining British ambition and incorporating foreigners into China’s concept of the world order. Currently the Qianlong silk tapestry is housed in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (Fig. 3.13). According to the museum record, it was gifted in 1934 by James Caird, founder of the museum. The work is approximately five feet wide by three feet ten inches high. It is believed to depict the Macartney Embassy to 18

Qin (1996, archive 4, p. 2). Refer to Joseph Banks Papers, State Library, New South Wales (2022), online sources. 20 Guan Shiming’s poem in The Collection of the Poems and Essays of Yunshan Tang (1894). 21 Hevia (1995, 72). 19

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China in 1793 because of the poem inscribed on the upper right, which Qianlong composed for the embassy. No other image of the embassy by Chinese artists has survived. The tapestry’s representation of European figures, with an emphasis on their scientific instruments, suggest that the tapestry is based on a painting that was selected by Qianlong from the imperial collection and designated as the depiction of the Macartney Embassy of 1793. The work shows a procession of European figures marching forward with tributes. Two of the gifts are astronomical instruments carried by many men due to their massive size. They are followed by figures pushing carts, and carrying heavy baggage on their shoulders. Other figures are depicted chatting leisurely in the back. Two entwined pine trees in the middle form an X that stabilizes the composition. Magical clouds are shown floating around among the trees and places, and large artificial rocks stand in the left and right corners of the image. The palaces hidden among the clouds are delineated in detail with a tall ornamental column to the side. Stylistic elements such as pine trees, magical clouds, artificial rocks, and the X shape of entwined trees are found in other Quianlong court paintings and suggest that the tapestry was produced by the imperial court. The crossed pine trees dominating Fig. 3.13 Qing court painters, portrait of Dutch (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library

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the center of the picture, with their long branches extending to both sides, form an auspicious symbol representing longevity. Magic clouds are another common motif in court painting, represented by spiral and swirling circles that create a mysterious atmosphere. Such clouds appear in Emperor Huizong’s Picture of Auspicious Cranes of the Song Dynasty. The depiction of the artificial rocks appears twisted, polished, and unnatural, and its shading gives a sense of three-dimensional solidity, typical of court painting. The palaces represent a general form of Chinese architecture, depicting a lot of detail, but lacking features that identify them as specific structures. The ornamental column are most likely an entrance gate. A poem attributed to Qianlong is inscribed on the upper right corner of the tapestry. It is translated as follows: The Emperor composed a poem recording the fact that the King of the red-haired English sent his envoy, Macartney, and others, who arrived bearing a state message and tribute. Formerly Portugal presented tribute; Now England is paying homage. They have out-travelled Shu Hai and Heng Zhang; My Ancestor’s merit and virtue must have reached their distant shores. Curios and the boasted ingenuity of their devices I prize not. Though what they bring is meagre, yet, In my kindness to men from afar I make generous return, Wanting to preserve the prosperity and peace of my domain.22

Composed in the imperial park in Rehe during Qianlong’s birthday celebration, the poem raises several questions about the tapestry. Was the tapestry commissioned by Qianlong to reflect the content of the poem? Or was it created before the poem was composed? What was the purpose of making this tapestry? What message did it convey in its visual representation? A close examination of the tapestry suggests some answers. As a type of pictorial silk tapestry, kesi tapestry was first produced by the imperial workshop during the early Northern Song period. It has “discontinuous wefts packed down to hide the lengthwise warp threads, resulting in a discernible ribbed texture.”23 This silk-weaving technique capable of meticulous delineation was suitable for producing copies of academic-style court paintings. Kesi tapestries were often used as diplomatic gifts or used to decorate the imperial palaces. Because paintings were usually used as the model for the tapestries, it is likely that this example is based on a court painting. Because of the large scale of the tapestry, it was probably made in the imperial workshop in Suzhou. As one of the three workshops of the Jiangning Weaving Bureau, Suzhou was famous for producing kesi tapestries during the Qianlong period.24 It was not intended as a gift for Macartney because it would

22

Translated by Singer (1992, 85). Kares (2008). 24 Guo (2014, pp. 70–71). 23

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have taken several months, long after the embassy had departed, to produce a tapestry of this size.25 The purpose of commissioning this tapestry is unknown, but the subject matter suggests that it was meant to commemorate the historical event of the British embassy. Most large-scale tapestries of this kind were used to decorate the interior of the imperial palace for the enjoyment of the emperor. Some were also bestowed to Qing officials or foreign envoys, although not this one. The message conveyed by the poem and image provide insight into the attitude of Qianlong toward the Macartney Embassy and its scientific gifts. The tapestry depicts many foreign figures in various costumes and gestures. If compared with Pictures of Tribute-Bearers created and compiled by court painters, the depiction of foreign figures conforms to other portraits of Europeans. Pictures of Tribute-Bearers was created by Ding Guanpeng, Jin Tingbiao, Yao Wenhan, and Cheng Liang during the period of 1751–1763. In 1751, Qianlong ordered the viceroy and governor to collect information on the “primitive” people within their provinces, and the foreigners who communicated with them, and commissioned both textual and visual descriptions to be presented to the imperial court. Qing court officials and artists compiled these documents in nine volumes which were collected in Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasures), and Vol. 1 includes a series of depictions of European figures.26 The work provides a kind of ethnographic study of various people of different racial origins, with detailed descriptions of their physical features, habits, customs, costumes, and their relations with China in history. They were ranked in a hierarchical order according to their closeness to China. The work was based on research that gained popularity during the Qianlong period. The depictions of Europeans were based on either direct observation of actual Europeans or European prints. Despite its title, not all of images were of actual tribute bearers. Some European countries had economic ties with the Qing empire, while some did not.27 Among the figures depicted on the tapestry, the laborers who carry the gifts seem to have been created anonymously with standardized European features, such as curved hairstyles. The laborers’ hair is close to that of the Dutch if compared with the portrait of the Dutch in Pictures of Tribute-Bearers (Fig. 3.13). In addition, they are shown wearing costumes like those of the black slaves of the Dutch, although without dark complexions. Qing court artists might have referred to the verbal descriptions of them in the manuscript, and found out their status as slave laborers. Therefore, they chose this type of costume to indicate their identity. In other words, these laborers were portrayed as types rather than individuals. The high-ranking officials who walk leisurely among the laborers on the tapestry can also be identified as models taken from Pictures of Tribute-bearers. For example, on the left side, a group of European officials are shown engaged in conversation. 25

Yuan Hongqi, the researcher at the Palace Museum in Beijing, proposed that it the creation of such a large scale of tapestry could have taken several months by the imperial workshop. 26 Lai (2014, pp. 56–69). 27 Ibid.

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Fig. 3.14 Qing court painters, portrait of Portuguese (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library

Their different costumes reveal that they are from different European countries. The three figures from the left are shown wearing tricorne hats and long robes, suggesting that they are Portuguese (Fig. 3.14). The figure next to them, who is wearing a ruff and frizzled-feather hat, can be identified as a German, while the other looks like a Frenchman with his long robe and wrapped hat (Figs. 3.15 and 3.16). An exact identification is difficult because weavings are not as detailed as paintings, but it seems clear that the figures are representations of European types rather than depictions of the individuals who were actually there. Lai Yuzhi in her article proposes that several of the important court paintings that depict tribute-bearers, such as Picture of Thousands of Countries Paying their Tributes created for the celebration of the eighty-year birthday of Qianlong’s mother, were based on the models in the manuscript of Pictures of Tribute-Bearers.28 She argues that Qing court painters followed a production procedure in which they collaborated to recreate images that the emperors had approved. The production method of the imperial workshop was consistent with the creation process of many of the workshops in local areas in which the artists followed the models and recomposed them 28

Ibid.

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Fig. 3.15 Qing court painters, portrait of German (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library

in different pictorial formats.29 The production of the silk tapestry took a similar approach, in which the artists copied each image from the manuscript in order to create a convincing image of European tribute-bearers. Pictures of Tribute-Bearers did include figures identified as British, which raised the question of why the tapestry did not just use these images. Most likely, the Qing court painters did not think the distinctions among Europeans to be important, since the Qing empire was considered the center of the world and all foreigners were grouped together as outsiders. In addition, the tapestry is not a direct representation of the British embassy, but one of a series of images depicting European tributebearers predating the Embassy. The elements of the tapestry were then was selected to represent the British envoys with the poem added later defining its subject, again, because the individual characteristics of foreigners were subsumed by a viewpoint where China was the center of the world. The depiction of the astronomical instruments that the embassy brought as tribute also provides insight into the Chinese attitude toward the British.

29

Ibid.

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Fig. 3.16 Qing court painters, portrait of French (reproduced from Pictures of Tribute-Bears), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library

In the tapestry, the European envoys are shown carrying two large-scale scientific instruments, and several carts and baggage of tribute. Examining the Illustration of Ritual Instruments, the two instruments can be identified as the Celestial Globe and Armillary (Figs. 3.17 and 3.18). Illustration of Ritual Instruments was commissioned by Qianlong to be created in 1759 under the leadership of Prince Yunlu. There is one section dedicated to the illustration of 50 scientific instruments whose creation can be dated from 1541 to 1750. They include not only those produced by the Bureau of Astronomy and Imperial Workshop, but also those given by Italian, German, French, and English envoys.30 Because the detail of the copies is extremely accurate, including the elaborate Chinese ornaments, it is apparent that the two instruments depicted in the tapestry came from Illustration of Ritual Instruments in the same way the European figures were copied from Picture of Tribute-Bearers. The depiction of the astronomical instruments as the most prominent forms of tribute reflects the vital importance of astronomy to Chinese emperors over a long history. As Son of Heaven, the emperor was responsible for establishing a system of computational astronomy for timekeeping, creating a calendar, and conducting 30

Liu (2004, pp. 30–144).

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Fig. 3.17 Qing court painters, Planetarium (reproduced from Illustration of Ritual Instruments), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library

astrological divinations. Timekeeping established order in daily life and reinforced the effectiveness of the rulers. Calendars organized various rituals to “demonstrate authority over the agrarian cycle, affirm the cosmic order, and normalize relations with other rulers.”31 Accurate predictions for celestial events were required for divination, which provided assurance of the emperor’s virtue. Given the special meaning and status of astronomy in Chinese political, social, and cultural life, it was 31

Elman (2005, p. 63).

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Fig. 3.18 Qing court painters, Armillary (reproduced from Illustration of Ritual Instruments), mid-eighteenth century, print. Image courtesy of Zhejiang University Library

reasonable to select astronomical instruments as the most important gifts the emperor received. Astronomical knowledge was also acknowledged as something that could come from foreign visitors. During the Yuan Dynasty, Muslim astronomers made significant contributions to Chinese astronomy, followed by Jesuits who brought European discoveries during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Appointed as the president of the Bureau of Astronomy, Ferdinand Verbiest introduced Western astronomy to the Qing court, and won the favor of the Kangxi emperor by creating a more accurate Chinese calendar. He was also well known for his rebuilding of the Beijing

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Ancient Observatory in 1673.32 The first six illustrations from Illustration of Ritual Instruments are the same as the bronze instruments built by Verbiest. Lord Macartney was well aware of the prominent role of astronomy in the imperial court and of the emperor’s keen interest in it. When the embassy prepared gifts before departure, they selected the planetarium as the most important item and decorated it to appeal to oriental sensibilities. The gift description elaborates at length on the splendor of the instrument its intention to cater to Qianlong’s interest and taste.33 Although the astrononical instruments brought by the embassy were an appropirate tribute, it is clear that the instruments represented in the tapestry are not those sent by Lord Macartney. The instruments of the British embassy adhered to the heliocentric teaching of Copernicus, which was becoming well-accepted in western astronomy, while the Ming and Qing astronomers followed Tycho Brahe’s geocentric system in which the sun and its planets revolved around the earth. As the followers of the Ptolemaic system, Jesuits saw the Tychonic system as “a Catholic compromise between the Ptolemaic and Copernican world systems.”34 In the tapestry, the artists chose to represent the older instruments as Europeans’ tributes in contrast to Mcartney’s instruments reflecting more advanced scientific achievements. According to Staunton’s account, Macartney’s planetarium was not assembled during the transportation. It was pieced together in the Yuanmingyuan under the watch of Chinese and Jesuit astronomers.35 The actual gifts that Macartney presented to the court were not depicted in the tapestry for a number of reasons. First, the artists probably had no chance to observe the new astronomical instruments first-hand and may have been told by Qing officials that there was no difference between Macartney’s gifts and those in the imperial collection.36 As a result, they simply chose the most important and representative mid-seventeenth century instruments from Illustration of Ritual Instruments as the objects for depiction. It was also possible that the tapestry or the painting on which it was modeled was created long before the Macartney Embassy, then selected from the imperial collection as a model based on which the tapestry was made, and later designated it as the representation of the embassy through the inscribed poem. The depiction of English as Europeans from different countries and the representation of outdated astronomical instruments provide evidences that the tapestry was based on a painting created before the arrival of the Macartney Embassy in 1793. When Qianlong commissioned a tapestry to be made to commemorate the Macartney Embassy, and an older a painting was selected as a model. The tapestry is therefore related to a larger history of tribute images. It is typical of the genre of Pictures of Tribute-Bearers. The subject in this case is related to guest ritual, one of the five orthodox rituals listed in the Orthodox Rituals of the Great Qing

32

Ibid., 102. For the description of the planetarium, see Staunton (1798, Vol. 2, p. 492). 34 Elman (2005, p. 328). 35 Qin (1998, 100–118). 36 See Jin Jian’s memorial cited in Qin (1998, 109). 33

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which was commissioned by Qianlong in 1736 and completed in 1759.37 The performance of rituals was intended to promote order, harmony, and stability throughout the Qing empire. During the Qing period, the guest ritual involved dealings between the Manchu court and its allies, and between the Qing empire and foreign countries, as well as intercommunication among Chinese people. Paying tribute was one form of the performance of the guest ritual, which consisted of three steps: presenting the list of tribute items, paying tribute to the emperor, and receiving largess.38 The tapestry depicts the middle step, when the European envoys were transporting the tribute to the Imperial Palace in Beijing. The earliest surviving picture of tribute-bearers is the one created by Xiao Yi in the court of the Liang during the sixth century. In this work, each figure is painted with fluid and accurate lines in a realistic manner. Beside the figures, verbal descriptions record their countries’ names, geographical information, national characters, and unique products. They are all shown dressed in native costumes, and offering their local products. Set against a blank background, these figures have no interaction with each other, but are juxtaposed with one another in a narrative context. Another kind of picture of tribute-bearers can be observed in the painting entitled The Meeting of Kings by Tang artist Yan Liben. This work shows a procession of tribute-bearers with grotesque features, like figures in ghost paintings. They are carrying various tributes, such as exotic stones and animals, and are set in a more narrative format that tells the story of a particular historical event. Such works might have inspired the creation of the tapestry image, which follows the pictorial convention established in earlier periods. For example, the Qing version of Picture of Tribute-Bears followed the pictorial format of the Liang version, and the tapestry followed the narrative format of Yan Liben’s works. The artists who created the Quianlong tapestry combined two approaches, borrowing the ethnographic illustration style and recomposing it into a pictorial narrative. The tapestry is similar in approach to the fictional Picture of Thousands of Countries Paying their Tributes, which shows envoys from 44 countries paying their tributes. It also creates an ideal empire in which Qianlong received tribute from various European countries.39 Qianlong regarded the embassy as merely another tribute-bearer like other European envoys. The scientific instruments brought by the Macartney Embassy did not arouse his interest, although they were carefully selected to represent the most advanced science in Britain. The imperial ambition of the Qing empire eventually led to the fate of the Macartney Embassy. There is a striking difference between British and Chinese representations of the meeting between Qianlong and the Macartney Embassy. Striving for empirical accuracy, Parish created a more objective record of the meeting based on a scientific method that came from his military training as a surveyor. Alexander later reworked Parish’s scientific diagram and topographic drawing to create finished watercolors 37

The five orthodox rituals refer to auspicious sacrifices, ceremonies of celebration, guest ritual, military ritual, ceremonies of misfortune. 38 Kang (2010). 39 Lai (2014).

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that depicted the British embassy as an equal partner with the Qing with the goal of encouraging diplomacy. Although the representation was re-composed for political purposes, it retained the scientific elements that reinforced its sense of historical accuracy. On the Qing side, the kesi tapestry tells a somewhat different story in which the British are tribute-bearers who kowtow to the emperor. Here, the Qianlong emperor is seen as the universal ruler of a multi-ethnic empire to which foreigners pay tribute, including the earlier Dutch and Portuguese envoys. Qianlong’s poem reinforces the superiority of the Qing empire and dismisses the embassy’s gifts, which represented the most advanced European science and technology, as curios with little value or novelty. The Qing attitude and resulting artistic depictions view all European outreaches and scientific instruments with indifference or disdain, placing them in a lower position in a China-centered world order. In noting that the Macartney Embassy’s watercolors of Qianlong meeting were reworked to meet its political goals, it is important to stress that the mission’s overall output provided an invaluable and largely accurate picture of China in the late eighteenth century. Although the embassy failed to achieve its primary goal of establishing a trade partnership, it nevertheless gained an opportunity to observe China and its people closely. Along the traveling route, the embassy collected a wealth of information on Chinese society and brought that knowledge back home to England.

References Edney, Matthew H. 1997. Mapping an empire: The geographical construction of British India, 1765–1843. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Elman, Benjamin. 2005. On their own terms: Science in China, 1550–1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gascoigne, John. 1994. Joseph Banks and the English enlightenment: Useful knowledge and polite culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guan, Shiming, 1894. The Collection of the Poems and Essays of Yunshan Tang. Guo, Qin. 2014. Holding multi-positions-Jiangnan Weaving Bureau. Chinese Archives 12: 70–71. Hevia, James. 1995. Cherishing men from afar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Joseph Banks Papers, State Library, New South Wales. http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/section-12 Accessed on February 6, 2022. Kang, David C. 2010. East Asia before the West: Five centuries of trade and tribute. New York: Columbia University Press. Kares, Jean. January 2008. Translation of medium: Kesi meets painting. In Textile Society of America symposium proceedings. Textile Society of America. Lai, Yuzhi. 2014. Constructing the ideal empire: The makings of the “pictures of tribute-bearers” and the “picture of thousands of countries paying their tributes.” Forbidden City 10: 56–69. Legouix, Susan. 1980. Image of China: William Alexander. London: Jupiter Books Publishers. Liu, Lu. 2004. Illustration of ritual instruments: An album that regulating the behaviors of Qing society members. Journal of the Palace Museum 5: 130–144. Qin, Guojing, and Huanting Gao. 1998. Emperor Qianlong and Macartney. Beijing: Forbidden City Publishing House. Qin, Guojing. 1996. Selected historical materials from the archives on the English ambassador Macartney’s visit to China, ed. No. 1 Historical Archives in Beijing. Beijing: International Culture Press.

References

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Roberts, Ivor. 2009. Satow’s diplomatic practice. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Singer, Aubrey. 1992. Lion and the dragon: The story of the first British Embassy to the Court of the Emperor Qianlong in Peking 1792–1794. London, Barrie & Jenkins. Staunton, George. 1798. An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, vol. 1. London: W. Bulmer and Co. for G. Nicol. Yang, Boda. 1982. Wanshuyuan court banquet. The Journal of the Palace Museum (4).

Chapter 4

Mapping and Exploring on the Travel Route

During the journey from England and China, and within the interior of China, the Macartney Embassy produced a great number of images and maps of their route, including interior and coastal areas. The embassy also created a series of images of the plants, animals, insects, and birds they observed, identified, named, and classified using the Linnaeus system. These images provide a visual record of British scientific knowledge in marine systems, geography, cartography, and natural history. A key area of focus was marine and coastal images, which were valued for both scientific and navigational purposes. The collaboration among the surveyors, engineers, and artists created scientifically accurate representations of seascapes and islands that are also visually appealing. The maps that the embassy created along their route, based in extensive surveying, went far beyond what past embassies had produced and built a foundation for future exploration. The drawings of flora and fauna represent Britain’s scientific project of cataloguing global natural history through the Linnaeus system in order to see the interconnections of phenomena and resources. The embassy’s naming and systematizing of natural history testified to British efforts to produce the knowledge of China in a global context.

4.1 Navigation and Coastline Drawings The second of Alexander’s three drawing volumes at the British Library includes 220 drawings of coastal views in addition to a set of coastline watercolors in his journal. The Yale Center for British Art has an album of 16 additional coastline images by Parish. Although there are no records indicating that Alexander or Parish had been trained in painting coastlines and shipping, their career experiences suggest that they were. It is likely that Alexander was required to have this skill as the embassy’s draughtsman and, later, as master of landscape drawing at the Royal Military College

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_4

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at Great Marlow.1 Parish, like many of the artillery officers, likely received training in drawing skills in nautical sciences since it was vital for both geographical and military surveying. Such training in eighteenth century-England usually included the combination of scientific disciplines, such as trigonometry, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and chronometry, and the drawing skills. Officers were equipped with scientific instruments, such as sextants and chronometers and required to keep a logbook or create charts.2 Most of the coastline drawings indicate that they were created on location, because they appear to have been sketched rapidly and the shipping images have numbers indicating the precise position of vessels. Such a representation required keen scientific observation on site. The art of navigation involved the skills of sketching and map-making in order to create recognizable coastlines enabling future sailors to follow in its track.3 To find the most direct and less dangerous marine route to China proved to be a challenge for European countries seeking trade with China, from the Portuguese and the Dutch to the British. For the purpose of navigation, draughtsmen were required to record the lands that the ship had encountered and passed. The artists and scientists on the embassy depicted shipping in a scientifically accurate manner that provided navigational information and reinforced British naval superiority by comparison. Their coastline drawings captured topography and other geographical and geological features. They experimented with the shape and color of the coastal forms in their own styles, and catalogued discoveries to be named, studied, and classified. In these coastline drawings, shipping constitutes an essential part of the image since it gives the precise location of the ships relative to the surrounding seascape. Ship portraiture originated in the Netherlands in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and gained popularity in the Golden Age of the seventeenth century. It was introduced to Britain where marine painting was further developed in the eighteenth century, and adopted by British artists like J. M. W. Turner, whose paintings captured human emotions toward the sea as well as nautical details. Dutch marine art had exerted a strong influence on that of the English. Charles II invited Dutch marine artists like the van de Veldes to settle in England and in the eighteenth century, the British avidly collected Dutch seascapes. Over time, British artists diverged from the Dutch model, and sought a distinctively English marine art, such as the work of Samuel Scott and Charles Brooking.4 Alexander was very likely familiar with Dutch-influenced marine painting works exhibited in the Royal Academy. These works emphasized scientific accuracy and Alexander clearly took this approach, going so far as to study the structure and operation of ships. Alexander’s watercolors also reflect Samuel Scott’s style of portraying the ship which emphasizes faithful representation and the grandeur of British ships, a symbol of British naval power.

1

Legouix (1980, p. 17). Martins and Driver (2007, p. 55). 3 Whitfield (1996). 4 For general introduction of English marine paintings, see Leek (1991). 2

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Early Dutch marine painters kept the models of ships in their studios in the sixteenth century, a practice which British artists likely emulated. Ship illustrations were also an important source for these artists since these images often present structural details and enabled British marine painters render ships with precision. Many of the coastline drawings of the Macartney Embassy’s coastline drawings provided images accurate enough to be used for navigation and identification. The embassy sailed to China aboard the Warship HMS Lion, a 64-gun Royal Navy ship commanded by Sir Erasmus Gower that was launched on September 3, 1777 at Portsmouth.5 It had been in the Battle of Grenada and in San Domingo against a large French force. The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich owns an etching that depicts the ship in detail, created in 1794 after Lord Macartney returned, perhaps to memorialize the trip to China. The Lion was accompanied by the Hindostan, belonging to the East India Company, and commanded by Capitan William Mackintosh. During the voyage, Alexander and Parish created many coastline drawings that included ships. In addition, the orientation of the ship provided important information for navigation and mapped the sea and territory in many parts of the globe. With their triumphs in fighting battles and global expeditions, the Lion and Hindostan embodied British naval power and the embassy’s optimism on achieving its goals. The coastal drawings by Parish and Alexander reflect careful observations of the surrounding landscape as well as ships, and recorded their topographical features of the coastal islands from geographical and geological perspectives. For example, when approaching China, on June 20, 1793, the embassy viewed a high peaked island called by Europeans the Grand Ladrone, and another less dramatic island near it. The same day, the ship sighted mainland of China into sight, bearing north-north-east.6 The sightings appear in two watercolors by Alexander entitled “The Ladrone Islands” (Fig. 4.1). In the first, Alexander paints a distant view including the Lion depicting the high peak of the Grand Ladrone in irregular, wavy, and disjointed outlines as reflected in Staunton’s description: The Ladrones, and clusters of islands between them and the southern extremity of China, are so near to each other and to the main land, and are also so broken, as well as irregular in their form and position, as to appear like fragments, disjointed from the continent, as one from the other, disjointed from the continent, and one from the other, at remote periods, by the successive violence of mighty torrents, or in some sudden convulsions of nature.7

The light black color of the rocks matches Staunton’s geological description that “the rocks of the Ladrone islands next the sea, are of black, or dark brown color, owing to the action of the salt water.”8 The rocks that Alexander represents also have very little vegetation, exposing the hard texture of the rocks, which again echoes with Staunton’s description: “In particular spots, indeed, there are some scattered 5

Lavery (1981, Vol. 1, p. 181). Staunton, An Authentic Account, Vol. 2, p. 385. 7 Ibid., p. 386. 8 Ibid. 6

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Fig. 4.1 William Alexander, the Ladrone Islands, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

patches of pleasing verdure; but, in general, little better than naked rocks appear; and scarcely a tree or shrub is visible among them.”9 In the second watercolor, Alexander appears to have reworked the first image to make that outlines of the islands more solid and refined. He paints the body of the islands with different tones of deep green colors to create a three-dimensional effect. The waves of the sea become curvier and more flowing, making the image appear lively and grand. Both watercolors emphasize the shape and contour of the islands as well as the geological texture of the rocks in a way that corresponds to the textual record of scientific observation. As an artist, Alexander tried to remain faithful to the observation of geological features while highlighting the aesthetic form to create a pleasing effect. The scientifically informed marine illustrations the embassy prepared on route served to advance British nautical knowledge as well as chronicle the voyage. Rio de Janeiro was an important location in the global geography of British maritime power because it was a key stopping point for British ships bound for the Indian Ocean, Australia, and the Far East. Aware of the port’s significance, Parish and Alexander collaborated to precisely represent the coastline. In the watercolor by Parish, he captures the region’s maritime geography, delineating the coastal hills with simplified, continuous, smooth lines. He also applied light green and blue watercolors to fill in the contours in order to represent the geological shape and texture of the rocks. The surface of the rocks appears quite flat, smooth and polished, lacking detailed

9

Ibid., p. 387.

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visual descriptions yet informative. He also noted the orientation of observation point to aid navigation. In Alexander’s watercolor, he re-worked on Parish’s image, applying more meticulous and fluid outlines to depict the hills, and darker tones to add shading to the rocks and vegetation, to add a three-dimensional effect to the drawings. The Sugar Loaf is shown on the west side with its distinct feature of a conical hill, which the artist noted as the landmark. The collaboration between Parish and Alexander demonstrates the combination of art and science in these coastline drawings. Similar cases can be seen in their depiction of the volcanic island of St. Amsterdam. Staunton’s account includes an image of the coastline of the island by Alexander, and a diagram of its crater by Parish and Barrow. In the original watercolor collected in the British Library, Alexander depicts “a cove or large basin of water” surrounded by hills with “a narrow and shallow opening with the sea.”10 A boat is seen sailing towards the opening of the basin as described by Staunton in his account. Like other coastline drawings, the artist experiments with different tones of green and brown colors to indicate the rocks and vegetation on the island. In the final print of plate 2 in Staunton’s account, the boat is shown sailing back from the opening of the crater (Fig. 4.2). On top of this image are three diagrams showing the plan of the island. It gives visual information on the shape of the island, the crater, and the location of hot springs and huts of the seal-catchers with specific measurements, including its scale and temperature. In Staunton’s account, Dr. Gillan offered a lengthy study of the formation of the rocks and soils, as well as hot springs, which reflect his research on geology and minerology during the journey. Like other trips of global exploration, the Macartney Embassy made discoveries of new lands which they studied, named, and classified, reflecting earlier colonial activities. On July 16, 1793, when the embassy sailed towards the Yellow River, they found two capes and one island that were the first lands they met navigating towards the gulf of Beijing. They measured their geographical location with precise data, and named them Cape Macartney, Cape Gower, and Staunton Island respectively. Without detailed textual descriptions of Cape Gower and Staunton Island, Alexander’s watercolor provides valuable visual information on identifying these landmarks for future navigation. Consistent with the verbal text, Cape Macartney is depicted as “having a remarkable appearance of six pointed peaks.”11 Plate 7 in Staunton’s account depicts these three points of land based on Alexander’s watercolor (Fig. 4.3). Naming the lands after embassy members shows the power explorers had when they discovered the new lands, identified them through scientific means, and recognized and memorialized their own achievement. In China, the action of naming lands reflects Britain’s sense of superiority and imperial ambition. Overall, the embassy members followed the tradition of marine painting in depicting the British ships, which aimed not only for identification but also for representing the British marine power. The paintings of coastal views were designed to help future mariners identify the landmarks of the route so that they could navigate 10 11

Staunton (1798, Vol. 1, 207). Ibid. (1798, Vol 2, 457).

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Fig. 4.2 View of Island of Saint Paulo or Amsterdam, the conical rock near the entrance of the crater bearing west, distant one mile, based on drawings (signed) by Henry William Parish and John Barrow (above) and William Alexander (below), 1797, engraving (reproduced from The Authentic Account). Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Fig. 4.3 Cape Macartney, Cape Gower, and Staunton Island, based on drawings by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

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successfully. In this way, the pictures created by Alexander and Parish testified to the combination of marine science and art that was part of British global exploration, of which China was a part.

4.2 Geography and Cartography During the Macartney Embassy, the artists also worked with surveyors for mapmaking and landscape depiction to record information about the geography, topography, and travel routes within China. In exploring the interior, the embassy surveyed and charted Chinese land and its natural resources to establish trade routes, assess new territories and plan for the future exploitation of resources. All of these goals were incorporated into British exploratory voyages as well as the goal of furthering scientific knowledge. For the past several hundred years, cartography has contributed to the reconstruction of mutual knowledge between Europe and China. In the ancient times and the Middle Ages, the geography of China remained as a myth, and the atlases of China were based on conjectures and imagination. During the early sixteenth century Portuguese navigators had the first direct contacts with China and accumulated geographical and nautical information. At the same time, Jesuits began to construct an ideal image of China by observing and recording its geography, population, and customs. They were also engaged in spreading European geographical skills and knowledge as means to attract the Chinese elites and intellectuals so that they could promote Christian belief. Under the rule of the Kangxi emperor, French Jesuits collaborated with the Qing officials to conduct a geographical survey of the empire. With all the data obtained in China, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde published his Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise in 1735 in Paris. The four big volumes contained 50 tables that became the most accurate and scientific cartography, and remained influential throughout the eighteenth century since Kircher’s China Ilustrata.12 During the second half of the eighteenth century, the English, following other European merchants and missionaries, became the leader in launching maritime expeditions building on their naval power and support of scientific institutions. James Cook’s three voyages revealed to the public the huge and unknown Pacific Ocean, filling empty spaces in global geography and expanding opportunities for exploiting natural resources and opening new markets. British ships were equipped with advanced scientific apparatus for geographical exploration and with a crew of scientists and naturalists. Like Cook’s voyages, the Macartney Embassy consisted of technicians and cartographers who produced important maps, including those representing islands, seaports, and interior travel routes, and China’s orientation on the world map. Staunton’s account contains several maps of travel routes created 12

For an introduction to the history of Western influence on Chinese cartography, see Yee (1987, pp. 170–202).

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by John Barrow. Excelling at mathematics, Barrow worked as a comptroller for the embassy, and taught mathematics to the young Staunton.13 In 1792, he published his book entitled A Description of Pocket and Magazine Cases of Mathematical Drawing Instruments, showing his mastery of measurement, which is essential for geographical surveys. Scientists and technicians like Barrow and Parish created highly accurate maps using scientific methods that distinguished them from those of earlier European explorers, especially in surveying of China’s interior, which had been inaccessible in the past. Lord Macartney owned almost all the existing books on China, including maps, and encouraged embassy members to collect all the important geographical data from these works and from seamen who had traveled to China. For example, Du Halde’s work provided the most recent achievements of geographic surveying drawing on the collaborative work between Chinese intellectuals and official and French Jesuit scientists.14 Considered the most accurate geographical study of China, the work likely contributed to the creation of the Chinese map by the embassy. The embassy set off on September 21, 1792, and reached the first destination of Cochin China after eight months at sea. One Mercator’s projection of the world map in Plate 1 of Staunton’s account shows the travel route of the Lion with other ships from Portsmouth, through Madeira, Teneriffe, St. Jago, Rio de Janeiro, the islands of Tristan d’Acunba, Cape of Good Hope, the island of Amsterdam, Batavia, Pulo-condore, and arriving in Cochin China in May 1793 (Fig. 4.4). It also includes the precise orientation of the ship along the travel route reflecting the high-level navigational technology. As for specific harbors, artists and surveyors collaborated to create maps and its corresponding coastline drawings that provided the most direct navigational information to date for British sailors. For example, on June 16, 1793, the ships sailed from Tourane Bay towards the Ladrone Islands outside Macau, continuing on to the Chu-san islands. In Staunton’s account, Plate 5 is a chart illustrating numerous islands that are depicted with different shapes (Fig. 4.5). It was based on an earlier map by Captain Thronton and published by Alexander Dalrymple.15 Notes on the map indicate that Barrow made additions and alterations to Dalrymple’s cartography based on direct scientific observation and measurement. As Mary Louise Pratt argues, the new age of European exploration moved from a maritime paradigm to exploring and documenting continental interiors. It generated a new mode of knowledge production in connection with natural history, and for the economic purpose of exploiting local resources. Although Qianlong rejected all the 13

For the biography of John Barrow, online source, see reference of Sir John Barrow Collection. Bai and Li (2014). 15 Alexander Dalrymple was the first hydrographer of the British Admiralty. He departed from London as he was appointed as a writer to the East India Company in Madra in 1753. And during this period, he became interested in the trade with East Indies and China. At the age of 22, Dalrymple visited Canton. In 1765, he returned to London where he became a fellow of the Royal Society. Dalrymple had produced and published a great number of nautical charts and maps. For example, between February 1774 and March 1777, he published in London A Collection of Plans and Ports in East Indies which comprised 83 plates of the ports from South Africa to China and in the Eastern Archipelago with sailing directions and topographical description. 14

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Fig. 4.4 Mercator’s projection of the world map (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

requests of Lord Macartney, the embassy did gain an opportunity to observe China closely when they traveled through the interior. They were allowed to travel beyond the Great Wall, and return from Beijing to Canton through the interior. During the journey, they collected information on local environments, and acquired valuable natural specimens. There are two maps in Staunton’s account entitled “A sketch of a Journey from Zhe-hol in Tartary by land to Peking and from thence by water to Hangtchoo-foo” in Plate 9 and “A sketch from Hang-Tchoo-foo to Quang-Tchoo-Foo or Canton in China” in Plate 10 in Staunton’s account (Figs. 4.6 and 4.7). It is likely that the embassy members created these images through direct measurement and observation. In these two maps, they marked the important lakes, canals, and bridges. They also noted natural resources within different cities or provinces, such as plants, rice, and sugar. The two botanists, David Stronach and John Haxton, contributed to the observation and recording of these resources. For the first map, Macartney and other embassy members had traveled from Tianjin through Tongzhou, and arrived in Beijing, and then traveled further to Rehe in the northeast. On the way, they collected information on the agriculture, industry, and life of the local areas. They were also able to mark the important landmarks, such as the imperial palaces and gardens, which were then transferred to the map with geographical data that indicates their location. When the embassy departed from Beijing to return home, they traveled inland until they arrived in Hangzhou. During this part of the journey, the embassy noticed the cotton shrubs that produced the cloth called Nankee in Europe. Near Suzhou, they discovered the tallow tree which

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Fig. 4.5 A chart of the islands to the southward of Tchu-san on the eastern coast of China, based on the cartographic drawing by John Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

was used to make candles. Around the West lake, they observed the weeping cypress which was depicted in a painting of the Leifeng pagoda by Alexander.16 In Hangzhou, the embassy was divided into two groups because the Lion had left Zhoushan and only the Hindostan remained there. The crew on the Hindostan, including Alexander, were required to set off from Hangzhou on the ship in the company of Song Yun. Led

16

Staunton (1798, Vol. 4 and 5, pp. 438–526).

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Fig. 4.6 Sketch from Zhe-hol in Tartary by land to Peking and from there by water to Hang-tchoofoo, based on the cartographic drawing by John Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

by the new Viceroy of Canton, Chang Lin, Macartney continue his journey inland along the great canal to Canton.17 Barrow traveled with Lord Macartney through the province of Jiangxi and made the second map illustrating the route from Hangzhou to Canton. Along the Qiantang River, the embassy recorded sugar plantations and orange trees. Staunton also recorded a Chinese variety of a date and persimmon, which Alexander depicted in one of his drawings, and they observed a tea shrub for the first time. When the embassy arrived in the county of Changshan, the river became too shallow for the boats, so they traveled through inland to the county of Yushan, taking a boat from 17

Qin (1998, pp. 156–174).

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Fig. 4.7 Sketch from Hang-Tchoo-Foo to Quang-Tchoo-Foo or Canton in China, based on the cartographic drawing by John Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

there to Canton. Because the county lies on the border of the provinces of Jiangxi and Zhejiang, where no foreign embassies had traveled before, the embassy was able to create a map that was totally based on their own scientific observation and measurement.18 During the process, they found bamboo plantations in Jiangxi province and observed the Chinese tea-planting and silk industries. In contrast to earlier marine exploration, the Macartney Embassy was able to travel along an island route that was previously inaccessible to other embassies. The maps of interior China that the British embassy created provided important knowledge on 18

Ibid.

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this route. Its exploration of Chinese natural history expanded British knowledge Chinese natural resources which they hoped to exploit in trading with China.

4.3 Representing Global Natural History In contrast to the traditional view of the eighteenth century as a “trough” between the two epics of the first and second scientific revolutions, historians of science have recently started calling it the “age of science.”19 One of the major reasons for this designation is the launching of several important European scientific expeditions during this period, especially James Cook’s three voyages to the South Pacific. Geography and natural history were primary goals of these global voyages. As early as the late seventeenth century, Robert Boyle published General Heads for the Natural History of a Country, Great or Small; Drawn Out for the Use of Travelers and Navigators of 1692 in which he promoted the investigation of natural history and geographical survey as “an aid to their and the country’s improvement.”20 The Royal Society of London offered instructions and advice in their publication Philosophical Transaction for travelers to make extensive surveying in geography and natural history of the foreign lands, and to report to them upon their return.21 David Stoddart argues for the importance of European discoveries of the Pacific Ocean in the formulation of geography as a discipline, and their contribution to the “globalizing project of natural history.”22 During this period, geographical knowledge and natural history experienced a great transformation through a systematic effort of collecting, classifying, and evaluating specimens from all over the world. It was brought about by Carl von Linnaeus, who led a revolution in the classification of organisms.23 Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician who invented a modern system of naming plants called binomial nomenclature in his book entitled Systema Naturae (The System of Nature) published in the Netherlands in the years 1735– 1738. To Linnaeus, all the plants, known or unknown, on the earth could be classified according to their reproductive parts. He identified twenty-four configurations of stamens, pistils, and so forth which were named according to the letters of the alphabet. Linnaeus regarded this classification method as a way to make order of the chaos of the natural world. The naming is in Latin because it was nobody’s national language. After The System of Nature, he finalized his classification system through his two works the Philosophia Botanica (1751) and the Species Plantarum (1753). The system was used mainly to classify the plants, but could also be applied to

19

William et al. (1999, p. 16). Boyle (1692). 21 Carey (1997, pp. 269–292). 22 Withers (1995, p. 138). 23 Ibid. (1995, p. 141). 20

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animals and minerals. The system seeks to locate every species on the planet and place it in its appropriate spot in an ordered system.24 Since the invention of the system, European travelers began to travel the globe while collecting and naming plants and insects, and making drawings and preserving the specimens. Linnaeus’ students were offered free trips by the overseas trading companies, especially the Swedish East India Company. For example, Peter Osbeck went to China as chaplain to the Swedish East India Company in 1750. He stayed at Whampoa and Canton and its neighborhood for four months during which he collected Chinese natural objects. In his diary, Osbeck enumerated 244 Chinese plants which he had collected, and described them in Linnaeus’s system. Osbeck gave his collection to Linnaeus who described 37 of these plants in his Species Plantarum.25 Through the efforts of Linnaeus’s students, Daniel Solander, Herman Sporing, and Anders Sparrman, who all participated in Cook’s three voyages, the binomial system of classification was increasingly adopted by naturalists. In 1762, Linnaeus had produced a pamphlet which was based on his directions for the 1734 tour through Dalecarlia, and offered general guides for how to conduct field research of nature.26 According to it, naturalists were required to map, name, and classify the local products and resources when they were exploring distant lands. They brought specimens back to Europe where they were further examined, categorized, and displayed in natural museums, botanic gardens, and learned societies.27 The Linnaeus system became popular in Britain during the second half of the eighteenth century for a number of reasons: the widespread dissemination of Linnaeus’s classification theory, its promotion by Joseph Banks, the shift of interest from physical and mathematic sciences to observational and experimental sciences, and British voyages of global exploration.28 At the beginning, Dr. Issac Lawson helped to fund the publication of Linnaeus’s System of Nature, and was engaged actively in Linnaeus’s system in Britain. Later Linnaeus garnered several important advocates, such as the naturalists John Ellis, Peter Collinson, and Benjamin Stilingfleet. With the support of the latter, William Hudson published Flora Anglica in 1762 which Sir James Smith described as “marking the establishment of Linnaeus principles of botany in England, and their application to practical use.”29 In 1788, Smith also helped to establish the Linnaeus Society which was regarded by Joseph Banks as a complementary institute to the Royal Society. Banks was the most important British naturalist and patron of the natural sciences in the latter eighteenth century. He accompanied Cook on his first voyage to the South Pacific (1768–1771), and helped King George III found the Royal Gardens at Kew, and served as the President of the Royal Society from 1778 to 1820. Banks’ scientific development was intertwined with the socio-economic bodies of 24

For general introduction of the Linnaeus system, see Pratt (2007, pp. 25–37). Bretschneider (1898, p. 58). 26 Withers (1995, p. 144). 27 Ibid. 28 Gascoigne (1994). 29 Ibid. (1994, p. 100). 25

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the British state, such as the Privy Council Committee for Trade, the Board of Agriculture, the Admiralty, the East India Company, the African Association, the Royal Society and many more. He emerged as an adviser to the government for scientific matters, and his patronage networks and political connections, such as the Royal Society, eventually enabled him to hold great power and influence on the government. Gascoigne discusses the transformation process in which Banks evolved from a virtuoso collector into a botanist and proto-anthropologist with the emergence of the specialization of scientific disciplines.30 Banks was an enthusiastic supporter of Linnaeus’s principles. His scientific exploration was an extension of many of the expeditions that Linnaeus himself and his students undertook. After Linnaeus’s death, Banks paid tribute to him in a letter to his son, stating that “I always had the highest respect and to his intellectual legacy” since “I have invariably studied by the Rules of his System, under your learned Friend Dr. Solander; so that the plants in my intended publication (the Endeavor florilegium) will be arranged according to his strictest rules.”31 The growing popularity of the Linnaeus system occurred around the same time as the great scientific expeditions carried out by British naval power. Mary Louise Pratt suggests that the classification system could be a new form of “planetary consciousness” which was different from the old navigational custom because it sought to map “every visible square, or even cubic, inch of the earth’s surface” in which the scientists “produced an order.”32 In contrast to the discovery of rivers and coasts in the navigational mapping, this planetary project searched for natural resources, markets, and lands for exploration and colonization. Cook’s voyages provided an exemplary model in which scientists mapped the new lands for scientific purpose and rich resources. The many unknown natural resources raised the status of naturalists who received growing support back in Britain. At that moment, the scientific field in Britain witnessed a shift of interest from the dominant physical and mathematical evidences to the growing techniques of observation and collection under continental influence, especially that of the France. Banks encouraged the development of all branches of sciences, including natural history.33 The British exploration of Chinese natural history started with the activities of the East India Company in China in the early eighteenth century. In 1701, James Cunningham carried out the first British exploration of natural history of China in Zhoushan on an expedition of the East India Company.34 He was the first European to build a botanical collection of China, which was comprised of about 600 Chinese plant specimens collected from Zhoushan. They were labeled with names and locations, descriptions, and uses. Both Leonard Plukenet and James Petiver published

30

Gascoigne (1998). Gascoigne (1994, p. 105). 32 Pratt (2007, pp. 25–37). 33 Gascoigne (1994) 34 Born in Scotland, James Cunningham was first trained as a surgeon, and later became a botanist in London. 31

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Cunningham’s plants in their works.35 Cunningham also collected Chinese export paintings of plants which he gave to Petiver, 789 of which are held in the British Library. In 1766, John Bradby Blake, an English naturalist, sailed to China as a supercargo for the East India Company. During his stay in Canton, he collected Chinese plants and their seeds which he planned to propagate in Britain and the colonies. Blake instructed a Chinese artist to paint a set of drawings of plants that later went into the collection of Joseph Banks, and he collected fossil and ores in China.36 For example, Blake collected the sample of Kaolin and ceramic pieces for Josiah Wedgewood in an effort to discover the secret of making Chinese porcelains.37 The Macartney Embassy carried out similar scientific functions in addition to its primary role as a diplomatic mission seeking trade with China. Banks instructed Macartney to take qualified technicians with him since he believed that “a few practical men admitted among them would in a few weeks acquire a mass of information for which if placed in the industrious and active English manufacturers the whole revenue of the Chinese empire would not be thought sufficient equivalent.”38 Before the dispatch of the embassy, Banks also composed a paper entitled “Hints on the subject of Gardening suggested to the Gentlemen who attend the embassy to China” in which he advised the embassy to collect information on Chinese methods of “accelerating of flowers” and “Dwarfs trees” (1798): Accelerating of flowering The gardeners in Europe are wholly unacquainted with the method of accelerating the blossoming of plants…no reasonable doubt can be entertained that the Chinese possess such an art and the acquisition of it would be very desirable to our gardeners here… Dwarf trees The Chinese have an art of training trees to make them bear all the appearances of ageing individuals of their species and yet produce flowers, fruit and leaves tho’ a tree which naturally grows to sixty feet high is kept within the compass of ten inches…39

He encouraged the embassy to pay as much attention to obscure and minute plants as elegant and beautiful ones. Banks listed twenty-two plants in the order that he desired, and provided the embassy the book Icones Kaempferiana.40 During the exploration of inland China, Staunton collected over 400 species of plants following Banks’ instructions, all of which were named and classified according to the Linnaeus system. Banks collected plants in two ways, to gather and preserve specimens to be displayed in museums, and to cultivate new plants in his botanical garden. To cater to 35

These plants are now collected in the Sloane herbarium in the Natural History Museum. See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Plukenet published Cunningham’s Chinese plants in the third volume of his Phytographia, and Petiver described about 200 of these plants in his Museii Petiveriani. 36 Bretschneider (1898, p. 152). 37 Toppin (1942, pp. 151–152). 38 Marshall (1993, p. 25). 39 Singer (1992, p. 160). 40 Kitson (2013, pp. 126–152).

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his requirements, each plant that was collected during the embassy was mounted and pressed on paper, with an envelope of seeds attached.41 Staunton’s Chinese plants are collected in the herbariums of the British Museum and Kew Garden, and some entered private French and German collections.42 Responding to Banks’ instructions and the aims of the naturalists in the embassy, Alexander’s third volume of sketches and drawings contains about 30 natural history images, including plants, animals, birds, and insects, most of which were created on the travel route from England to China. Alexander always placed the plant and animal images against a blank background, and magnified some of the insects to show details. These drawings were intended to be examined by British naturalists for scientific purposes. Alexander’s isolated images reflected the prevailing approach of Linnaeus, who separated organisms from their environments and re-ordered them into his cataloguing system. Staunton’s account names and classifies these plants and animals according to the Linnaeus system. While these images served a clear scientific purpose, the study of these organisms also aimed to uncover new raw resources and explore potential commercial markets for the British empire. For example, Banks promoted the self-sufficient program in Britain in which he introduced certain plants to England and its colonial territories to be cultivated by themselves in order to meet domestic consumption, while the embassy was eager to collect various important information on the needs of overseas commercial markets in which they could promote their own products. The embassy also conducted research on insects and local industry that contributed to the discipline of British entomology. In Rio de Janeiro, they conducted research on the local natural history in relation to its industrial application. They discovered the manufacture of cochineal and its process of dying. Alexander painted two pictures of cochineal insects and the cactus on which these insects grow. Sir Staunton cited Sir Barrow’s research and described them as follows: The male is a delicate and beautiful insect. The color of the whole body a bright red, nearly resembling the pigment usually called red lake. The breast is elliptical, and slightly attached to the head. The legs are of a more brilliant red than that of the other parts. Two fine white pigments, about three times the length of the insect, project form the extremity of its belly or abdomen. The wings are two, erect, of a faint straw color, and of a very delicate texture. The female has no wings, is elliptic in its form, and convex on both sides, but most so on the back, which is covered with a white downy substance resembling the finest cotton. The abdomen is marked with transverse rugae or furrows. The mouth is situated in the breast, having a brown break, inclining to a purple tint, that penetrates the plant on which the insects feeds. Its six legs are of a clear bright red.43

In his picture, Alexander painted five male and female cochineal insects as if they were placed on a lab table (Fig. 4.8). He also pasted another small piece of paper on which the insect was crushed to show the color of cochineal. Staunton describes the production process of making cochineal color which involved collecting the insects in 41

Singer (1992, p. 161). Bretschneider (1898, p. 163). 43 Staunton (1798, Vol. 1, pp. 165–171). 42

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Fig. 4.8 William Alexander, Cochineal insects, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

a wooden bowl, and heating it over a charcoal fire until the insects disintegrate. They then appear as reddish grains and became cochineal dye. He notes that naturalists in the past had been confused about whether cochineal was a kind of plant, animal, or mineral and adds that the production of cochineal was very limited in Rio de Janeiro, to about thirty pounds per year.44 This discovery of the production of cochineal was one of several important contributions the embassy members made. Alexander also painted a species of the leaves of cactus, the plant on which the insects feed. Barrow again applied the Linnaeus system and identified the plants as “cactus opuntia” which was noted by Alexander on his drawing. Staunton’s account describes the plant in this way: The leaves are thick and fleshy; the upper side more flat, or even concave, than the opposite; are somewhat of an oval form, growing without stalks, but rising one immediately from the other’s edge, as well as from the stem, and armed with round and tapering prickles, about an inch, or nearly so, in length.45

The embassy linked the study of insects to that of plants. In Staunton’s account, Plate 12 illustrates the leave of cactus opuntia (Fig. 4.9). The cactus leaf is depicted as a magnified specimen which seemed to be plucked from the stem without a background with spines and a flower growing on the fat leaves. The cochineal insects in their different life stages are represented scattered around it to show the life cycle. The visual representation must have come from scientific observations by naturalists since it is precise with concrete illustration and accurate measurement. Alexander painted a whole cactus tree in watercolor in which he paid great attention to the depiction of the dense leaves which he delineated in various shapes in light green colors (Fig. 4.10). He captured the main physical characteristics and 44 45

Ibid. Ibid.

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Fig. 4.9 A leaf of prickly pear with cochineal insects upon it (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

the configuration of the tree, depicted as always on a blank background, provided valuable visual sources for naturalists. In Java, Alexander showed a particular interest in local fruits and vegetables. In three of his drawings, he illustrated a series of mangosteen, a flavorful fruit that was widely produced in Java. Staunton notes its particular growing environment, and writes that “it is about the size of a nonpareil apple, and consists of a dark-red, thick and firm rind, containing from five to seven seeds, of which a while pulp that covers them, is the only part that is eaten.”46 In one drawing, Alexander shows six mangosteens from different perspectives (Fig. 4.11). Some were opened or peeled, exposing the core and pulp. Alexander must have collected this fruit, and carefully studied its structure while he was painting it. The numbers marked on top of each fruit corresponds to the earlier drawing, exhibiting the production process of the drawing. There is another engraving illustrating the Chinese tea plant called Camellia sinensis in Staunton’s account (Fig. 4.12). The earliest image of this kind of tea plant which was probably acquired from Zhoushan can be found in James Petiver’s Gazophylacii Naturae & Artis published in 1702.47 It is probably based on the drawings of plants sent to Petiver from James 46 47

Ibid. (1798, Vol. 1, p. 275). Whitehead and Edwards (1974, p. 14).

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Fig. 4.10 William Alexander, The Cactus Optunia from the Roy. Botanical Garden at Rio de Janeiro where there is a large plantation of these trees for breeding & rearing the Cochineal Insect, 11 Dec. 1792, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Cunningham in 1698.48 In this print, the plant is represented in a similar pictorial composition in which a branch lies along a diagonal line. Among the leaves grow a flower and a bud, with an unidentified insect lying on one leaf. This style of pictorial representation is highly scientific in comparison with that of Joseph Banks’ Florilegium. Banks’ Florilegium is a collection of engravings of the botanical specimens that he and Daniel Solander had collected on Cook’s voyages from 1768 to 1771. Sydney Parkinson studied these plants and created botanical watercolor illustrations which were enhanced by 18 engravers hired by Banks back in Britain between 48

Chang (2006, p. 72).

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Fig. 4.11 William Alexander, Image of mangosteens, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

1771 and 1784. Alexander’s works were likely influenced by these watercolors of the plants collected by Banks. Comparing Banks’ botanical illustration to that of Alexander, we see that both plants were represented as a branch with flowers against a blank background. The illustration of the specimen shows an enlarged organism with details in a precise and exquisite manner. It is typical of botanical illustrations that conveys scientific information and knowledge of botany to the British public. However, since no information was provided about the living environment of the

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Fig. 4.12 Image of Camellia sinensis (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

plant, Banks expressed regret that the naturalists’ failed to capture their growing environment, which he believed “rendered the dried specimens virtually useless.”49 Banks became expressed an interest in cultivating Chinese tea plants in British Bengal. The Calcutta Botanic Garden, which was founded by Lt. Robert Kyd in 1786 became the experimental space for the transportation of some important plants, including coffee, tobacco, pepper as well as Chinese tea. Banks expected the Macartney Embassy to unlock the secret of the technology of the cultivation of Chinese tea, and hoped that they could get hold of Camellia sinensis. Before that, he had successfully transported the breadfruit plant from Tahiti to the West India as food for the slaves.50 In his paper of 1788 addressed Sir Francis Baring, Banks judged that Chinese tea grew between 26 and 30th degrees of latitude, and proposed that “Bengal 49 50

Kitson (2013, p. 142). Caroline Alexander. Online source, see reference.

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blessed with advantages of soil climate and population” would yield a “Tribute” that “binds itself to the mother Country by the strongest and most indissoluble of Human ties that of common interest and mutual advantages.”51 The embassy was instructed to obtain young tea plants that could be sent to Bengal for Kyd to transplant in the hope that “one day or other they may be reckoned among the commercial resources of our own country.”52 Finally, Lord Macartney acquired some shoots of the best tea plants that he forwarded to James Dinwiddie to be taken to Bengal for cultivation. The naturalists on the embassy also researched the local birds that contributed to the study of British ornithology. For example, at Batavia, the host of Macartney gave him a pheasant as a gift. Lord Macartney later sent it to George Shaw at the British Museum for study.53 In Staunton’s account, Plate 13 illustrates a bird named the fire-backed pheasant of Java. This image was created by Sydenham Teast Edwards (Fig. 4.13). In his early years, Edwards was trained in both botany and botanical illustrations. From 1787 to 1815, he produced a great number of botanical and zoological illustrations, including those for Botanical Magazine. He was selected as a fellow of the Linnaeus Society.54 In this print, a pheasant is depicted standing on a cut track around which grow wild grasses and weeds. Beside it is a swamp bordered by a range of hills. After examination and comparison with other birds described by Linnaeus, Dr. Shaw asserted that this pheasant had not been documented in any of the works of ornithology. He summarized the essential characters of the bird: “Black pheasant with steel-blue gloss, the sides of the body rufous, the lower part of the back fiery ferruginous, the tail rounded? The two middle feathers, pale yellow–brown”.55 The embassy observed the fishing birds along the great canal when they passed Shandong province. Staunton noted the fishing bird as “a species of the pelican, resembling the common corvorant” (cormorant in modern spelling), but as Dr. Shaw described, the bird was also identified as a “brown pelican or corvorant, with white throat, the body whitish beneath and spotted with browne, the tail rounded, and irides blue, the bill yellow”.56 One of Alexander’s sketches depicts a Chinese fishing bird against a background landscape. He vividly captures the essential characteristics of the bird Staunton describes (Fig. 4.14). There are two human figures, houses, a pagoda, and a pavilion standing in front of the mountains in the background, reminiscent of Chinese taste. The bird was intentionally magnified into a disproportion to emphasize its prominent position.

51

Kitson (2013, p. 141). Kitson suggested that through borrowing the tribute system, Banks applied it to the colonial relationship of Bengal to Britain. 52 Ibid. 53 Staunton (1798, Vol. 1, p. 246). In 1791, Dr. Shaw undertook the position of assistant keeper of natural history department at the British Museum. As a zoologist, he published his Zoology of New Holland in 1794 which examined several important Australian animals, including platypus. 54 See “Edwards, Sydenham Teak” in Dictionary of National Biography. 55 Staunton (1798, Vol. 1, p. 248). 56 Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 388).

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Fig. 4.13 The fire-backed pheasant of Java, based on the drawing by S. Edwards (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

In Plate 37 in Staunton’s account, the body of the bird is elongated so that it appears more elegant and robust (Fig. 4.15). Staunton perceived that Chinese fishing birds were trained not to swallow the prey though they required no ring or cord on their throat. Starting in the tenth century, using cormorants was one of the major methods for catching fish in China and Japan. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such a method was applied mainly in England and France.57 The embassy’s depictions may account for British interest in this kind of bird. The similar style of scientific illustration can be observed in many of Alexander’s drawings, such as his depiction of trees, animals, birds, sea organisms, and plants, 57

Laufer (1931, pp. 201–262).

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Fig. 4.14 William Alexander, Image of the fishing bird, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 4.15 Fishing bird, based on the drawing by S. Edwards (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

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always independent of their environment. Like a naturalist, Alexander studied the structure of these organisms, and represented them from different angles. Equipped with advanced scientific instruments and technology, the Macartney Embassy explored and surveyed the travel route from England to China and the interior of China. During this journey, members mapped the seas and lands on their route, and created important coastline drawings and maps intended to provide navigational information for future British explorers. They also studied natural history and collected, named, and classified specimens according to the Linnaeus system. Embassy members, such as Parish, Barrow, and Alexander, offered their scientific representations of the coasts, islands, and inland in great accuracy and detail based on their own training as a technicians and draughtsmen. The embassy’s naturalists, such as David Stronach, John Haxton, and their advisor Joseph Banks, collected the specimens of birds, flowers, plants, and insects, and studied them with a scientific method as a way to explore local resources for the British market. Going beyond strictly scientific renderings, Alexander’s drawings gave the images artistic enhancements that preserved their accuracy. As an artist, Alexander depicted coastlines and natural specimens with a scientific gaze, reflecting the blending of art and science of the period. The embassy’s collection and cataloguing of geography and natural history were an essential part of the Britain’s imperial and global exploration goals.

References Alexander, Caroline. Captain Bligh’s cursed breadfruit. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/ captain-blighs-cursed-breadfruit-41433018/. Accessed on January 3, 2022. Bai, Hongye, and Xiaocong Li. 2014. Kangxi chao huangyu quanlan tu. Beijing: National Library Press. Boyle, Robert. 1692. General Heads for the Natural History of a Country, Great or Small; Drawn Out for the Use of Travelers and Navigators. London: John Taylor and S. Holford. Bretschneider, Emil. 1898. History of European Botanical Discoveries of China. St Petersburg: Press of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences. Carey, Daniel. 1997. Compiling nature’s history: Travelers and travel narratives in the early Royal Society. Annals of Science 54 (3): 269–292. Chang, Xiuming. 2006. The Scientific Mission of the Macartney’s Embassy-Centered on the Exhibition of Gifts and Scientific Investigation. Master’s thesis. Taiwan Tsinghua University. Gascoigne, John. 1994. Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful knowledge. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Gascoigne, John. 1998. Polite Culture and Science in the Service of Empire: Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/9167adf6-859a-36b3-95d0-4be ba4a8872e. Accessed on January 3, 2022. Kitson, Peter. 2013. Forging Romantic China: Sino-British Cultural Exchange 1760–1840. Cambridge University Press. Laufer, Berthold. 1931. The domestication of the cormorant in China and Japan. Publications of the Field Museum of Natural History. Anthropological Series 18 (3): 201–262. Lavery, Brian. 1981. The ship of the Line. Vol. 1. Conway Maritime Press. Leek, Michael E. 1991. The Art of Nautical Illustration: A Visual Tribute to the Achievements of the Classic Marine Illustrations. Secaucus, NJ: The Wellfleet Press.

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Legouix, Susan. 1980. Image of China: William Alexander. London: Jupiter Books Publishers. Marshall, P. J. 1993. Britain and China in the late eighteenth century. In Ritual and Diplomacy: The Macartney Mission to China, 1792–1794, ed. Robert A. Bickers. London: Wesweep Press. Martins, Luciana and Driver, Felix. 2007. John Septimus Roe and the art of navigation, c. 1815–30. In Art and the British Empire, ed. Tim Barringer, Geoff Quilley, and Douglas Fordham. New York and Manchester: Manchester University Press. Pratt, Mary Louise. 2007. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. Routledge. Qin, Guojing, and Huanting Gao. 1998. Emperor Qianlong and Macartney. Beijing: Forbidden City Publishing House. Singer,Aubrey. 1992. The Lion and the Dragon: The Story of the First British Embassy to the Court of the Emperor Qianlong in Pekin 1792–1794. London: Barrie&Jenkins. Sir John Barrow Collection. Staunton, George. 1798. An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. London: W. Bulmer and Co. for G. Nicol. Toppin, Aubrey J. 1942. Chitqua, the Chinese Modeller, and Wang-Y-Tong, the ‘Chinese Boy.’ Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle: 151–152. Whitehead and Edwards, P. I. 1974. Chinese Natural History Drawings: Selected from the Reeves Collection in the British Museum (Natural History). London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Whitfield, Peter. 1996. The Charting of the Oceans: Ten Centuries of Maritime Maps. London: The British Library, 1996. William, Clark, Jan Golinski, and Simon Schaffer. 1999. The Sciences in Enlightened Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Withers, Charles W. J. 1995. Geography, Natural history and the eighteenth-century Enlightenment: Putting the World in Place. History Workshop Journal 39. Yee, Cordell D. K. 1987. Traditional Chinese cartography and the myth of westernization. In The History of Cartography, Vol. 2, Book 2, 170–202. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chapter 5

Artistic Representation of Chinese Landscapes

The Macartney Embassy observed and recorded the features of China’s lands, mountains, and rivers, and human settlements, which they captured in a large number of images. These geographical artworks reflected an emerging confluence of scientific and aesthetic interests in representing landscapes. The major cities and sites on the travel route were rendered under the influence of the prevailing styles, most prominently, Picturesque and Sublime aesthetics. Underlying these artistic effects was a reverence for science and technology that can be seen most clearly in the riverscape along the Grand Canal. The emerging disciplines of geography and archaeology played an important role in formulating the scientific representation of Chinese landscapes and artefacts. They negotiated their concern for the individuality and particularity of topographical landscapes with the more uniform norms of the Picturesque aesthetic, which transformed the images to cater to British taste while retaining their underlying accuracy. From sketches and diagrams to finished paintings and prints, the artists and surveyors collaborated to create an imagery of Chinese landscape that reinforce British imperial power. This orientation can be seen in how the landscapes were selected, reordered, and recreated in their distinctive verbal and artistic languages.

5.1 Chinese Cityscapes and the Topographic Aesthetic In the eighteenth century, scientific observation gained importance due to the development of disciplines like geology and geography and, in the early nineteenth century, the organizations established to support them, including The Geological Society of London (1807) and the Royal Geographical Society (1830).1 The scientific expeditions often included geologists, geographers, meteorologists, and other specialists 1

For the introduction and history of the Geological Society of London and the Royal Geographical Society, online source, see reference.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_5

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in sciences and natural history. They carefully studied the earth, rocks, and atmosphere in distant lands, and recorded their observations in words and pictures. These documents provided first-hand sources for artists to compose landscape paintings in which specific earth formations and meteorological phenomena were rendered. The graphic representations of this scientific project were expected to complement the verbal narratives in order to present a full picture of a landscape. Greg Thomas raises the concept of a “topographical aesthetic” embodied in the French landscape paintings produced in the early half of the nineteenth century.2 He traces the formation of the aesthetic through his examination of French guidebooks and argues that “it was not merely a local variation on naturalism but a distinct set of representational strategies carrying a new kind of landscape meaning, one tied ultimately to a particularly French form of national identity.”3 A similar topographic aesthetic appears in eighteenth century British landscapes, in the paintings of artists like Joseph Farington and Paul Sandby. Farington was known for his “careful, accurate topographical drawings which he prepared for the folio of engravings of British views which found a ready market among tourists confined to Britain by unrest abroad.”4 He painted and published Views of the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland in 1785, and the two-volume History of the River Thomas in 1794, which are typical topographical landscapes.5 The watercolorist Paul Sandby started his career as the chief draughtsman of the Scottish Ordnance Survey in 1747–1755, working under Colonel David Watson to provide reliable information on Scottish topography for the army.6 He was later appointed the chief drawing master to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and made extensive trips around Britain and Ireland to sketch local scenery and monuments.7 Sandby also worked for Joseph Banks to produce a series of engravings of Welsh scenery, which reflected the importance Banks placed on empirical accuracy.8 The British topographic aesthetic underlies the work of the surveyors and artists on the Macartney Embassy, whose landscapes conveyed geographical information on China. Alexander’s focus on topographical accuracy reflects the influence of his friend Paul Sandby, with whom he shared a similar background and interests.9 Related to topographic landscape painting was the tradition of urban imagery, which similarly emphasized careful observation of architectural forms and their surroundings. The Macartney Embassy visited several important Chinese cities, including Tianjin, Beijing, and Suzhou, which they represented with great accuracy. For example, Alexander studied Tianjin’s geographical setting and features, and researched the materials of local buildings. On August 5, 1793, the embassy 2

Thomas (Spring 2002). Ibid. 4 See the biography of Joseph Farington, see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 5 Ibid. 6 Herrmann (1965, pp. 466–468). 7 Hughes (1975, pp. 452–457). 8 See Faring’s Diary cited in John Gascoigne (1994, p. 72). 9 Legouix (1980, pp. 16–17). 3

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arrived at the town of Dagu along the White River, where Macartney boarded a Chinese yacht prepared for his reception. With the rest of the embassy in sixteen other yachts, each loaded with gifts, the embassy left Dagu for Tianjin on August 9.10 Staunton noted that Tianjin was at the confluence of the White River flowing from Beijing and the Grain-Bearing River communicating with distant provinces.11 Today, the two rivers are known as the North Canal and South Canal on whose intersection lies the city of Tianjin.12 Staunton commented that the ancient Chinese maps were quite confusing because although they showed the Yellow River divided into two branches, it was unclear whether the northern branch was added to the rivers at Tianjin or joined the gulf alone. He consulted the works of Marco Polo and inferred that Tianjin was already a prominent city in the thirteenth century. He observed that the city was built on rising ground, and new houses were continuously erected on old ruins.13 Alexander’s drawings depict the reception scene on the harbor now known as Sancha hekou (the mouth of the three rivers). According to Chinese historical documents, this is of the earliest residence of Tianjin and the earliest settled land and river docking area. During the Qing period, Tianjin became the transport hub of northern China and a major business hub where numerous stores and hotels were built.14 In the three watercolor sketches depicting Tianjin held at the British Library, Alexander depicts the two-story Chinese theatre erected opposite Macartney’s yacht for the entertainment of the British embassy. The exterior was decorated with brilliant colors with a yellow roof. A Chinese drama was performed which was watched by hundreds of ordinary people surrounding the structure. Alexander appears to have created the first two pictures on the yacht anchored opposite the theatre along the river, roughly sketching the buildings and human figures with simple, rapid brushstrokes (Figs. 5.1 and 5.2). The images present the scene accurately based on direct observation, with particular attention to the architectural form of the theatre, rendered both in distant and close-up perspectives. A third more picturesque watercolor shows a more finished, detailed, and composed view (Fig. 5.3). Large barges on the right side form a natural frame, with smaller boats in the middle ground and elaborately decorated buildings in the background. Alexander also took the images of the theatre in the first and third sketches, and incorporated them with earlier studies of pavilions and a military fortress to create a pleasant and harmonious representation. In a print in Costume of China, Alexander depicts the river scene of Tianjin in which the vessels carrying the British embassy and their gifts approach the shore (Fig. 5.4). Since no sketches have been found, the image must have been based on a verbal description and the artist’s close study of the buildings’ materials and construction 10

Qin and Gao (1998, pp. 47–63). Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 23–24). 12 Zhong (2011). 13 Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 42–43). 14 Archives (2014). 11

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Fig. 5.1 William Alexander, View of Tianjin, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.2 William Alexander, View of the Theatre at Tianjin, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

techniques. Staunton’s diary notes that in the villages near the river, the houses appear to have been built of mud, but on a closer inspection, the walls were made from baked bricks, and the tiled roofs were plastered over with a mud-colored substance.15 No lime or stone was used to build the houses. Alexander depicts the reception houses with brown muddy-color bricks whose simple appearance suggest a temporary structure built for the embassy. On the left side of the reception hall is a humbler house, and on its right side is a more elaborate temple with a blue tiled roof. On the right side, more residences and stores are represented standing in a dense cluster with red and blue tiled rooves. Staunton’s account records that there were three different 15

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 18).

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Fig. 5.3 William Alexander, View of Tianjin, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.4 The Embassy’s reception at Tianjin, based on the painting by William Alexander, 1805, engraving and aquatint (reproduced from Costume of China). Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

colors of bricks, leaden blue, red, and pale brown, whose differences result from the process of converting the earth into bricks. He describes the process: (Those brown color bricks) had been exposed to no other heat than that of the sun, in which they were only baked or indurated imperfectly. The blue bricks were exposed to the action of

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a close wood fire, in kilns erected for that purpose, and where little actual flame was suffered to attain the surface of the bricks. Such as received the action of the flame were inclined to red.16

Alexander represents the houses having one or two stories. Staunton does mention that Chinese preferred one-story house because they felt awkward stepping down the stairs, but since Tianjin is near the water, they may have needed two-story houses. Travelling from the prefecture of Tongzhou to the Yuanmingyuan palace, the embassy had to pass through the capital of Beijing. Here, the artists paid great attention to the accurate depiction of its architectural forms, such as the city gate and the imperial palace and residence, but they also were influenced by the prints of William Chambers. The embassy entered the East Gate of the city and walked about two hours until they arrived at the West Gate of Beijing, which Barrow captured in a drawing.17 Staunton’s record includes a brief description of the small river surrounding the city of Beijing that fell into the White River.18 The West Gate of Beijing was demolished in the 1960s, and the image preserves the appearance of this important monument of the late eighteenth century. In Barrow’s drawing, he represents the Jianlou (arrow building) and Chenglou (city building) connected by the long city walls with a few humble houses alongside them. A stone arch bridge spans the river surrounding the walls with figures crossing it. The brushwork is loose and lacks the detail of Alexander’s image and color is muted, conveying a warm feeling. In Staunton’s Plate 20, Alexander models the print on Barrow’s drawing while pulling the whole scene further into the distance (Fig. 5.5). He meticulously depicts a boat passing under the bridge. Near the bridge, the carriage in Barrow’s drawing is replaced by porters, some pulling and pushing the cart, others are carrying goods in baskets on their shoulders. These details were based on Alexander’s direct observation since the porters’ actions and the devices conform to local Chinese customs. Alexander depicts the clouds against a clear sky rendered in warm tones to create an atmospheric perspective. Near the bridge stands a Pailou, or in Staunton’s translation “Triumphal Arch,” which Staunton (1798) describes: The whole was built of wood, and consisted of three handsome gateways, of which the middle is the highest and largest. Over these were constructed three roofs above each other, richly decorated. Large characters painted or gilt upon the uprights and transoms, indicated the purpose of which the Pailoo was erected.19

The interest in architecture can be observed more saliently in the study of the Hall of Audience in the Yuanmingyuan palace. After arriving in Haidian, the embassy was instructed to exhibit the gifts at Yuanmingyuan. Barrow produced a diagram showing the plan of the Main Audience Hall, and Alexander created a drawing representing the actual imperial palace. Plate 22 in Staunton’s account was based on this drawing by Alexander. This building was where the emperor received his 16

Ibid. (1798, Vol. 2, pp. 340–341). Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 124). 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, p. 117). 17

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Fig. 5.5 View of the western gates of the city of Peking, based on the drawings of Barrow (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

officials and foreign envoys, and where he held grand banquets for birthdays and other celebrations. Barrow’s diagram shows an overhead view of the palace with its adjacent court. It is also based on precise measurements using the architect’s scale. Barrow accurately notes the spatial positions of the different courts, buildings, gates, and tall trees, recording key data on the palace complex. In the drawing by Alexander, he presents an open view of the inner palace court. He delineates this grand hall with meticulous outlines that accurately show architecture (Fig. 5.6). The roof is painted in light grey, the columns and ornaments in red. The relaxed surrounding scene shows eunuchs in conversation or resting under the trees. The print in Staunton’s account presents the features of the building in more detail carefully depicting the doors and windows behind the ten columns with a complex decorative pattern (Fig. 5.7). Alexander depicts the officials and eunuchs walking by with cases or smoking and chatting in chairs. In addition to the audience hall, the artist also captured the general plan of the inner palace court showing the inner gate and the west wing building of the waiting rooms. In a sketch of a house of the Yuanmingyuan palace, Alexander records the structure of the building with the open view of the interior. Comparing the British images with those of the Qing court artist Tang Dai’s scenic view of the Hall of Audience, it becomes apparent that Alexander carefully studied the architecture of the imperial palace, but enlarged the building in order to make it appear grander and more magnificent in relation to the relatively smaller and less elaborate houses around it.

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Fig. 5.6 William Alexander, View of the Hall of the Audience at Yuanmingyuan, 1792–1794, ink and watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.7 View of the Hall of Audience at Yuanmingyuan, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

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Macartney expressed his wish that the embassy should stay in Beijing instead of Yuanmingyuan. Soon they were received in the hotel or palace of the former collector of revenues and customs of Canton, whose properties had been confiscated by the emperor due to corruption. In a watercolor and print of this residence, Alexander depicts a shifang (stone barge) dominating the center surrounded by various buildings. Staunton describes this residence, paying particular attention to the architectural columns: The columns were of wood, nearly sixteen feet in height, and as many inches in diameter at the lower end, decreasing to the upper extremity above one sixth. They had neither capital nor base, according to the strict meaning of those terms, in the orders of Grecian architecture, nor any divisions of the space called the entablature, which is plain to the very top that supports the cornice. They were without any swell at the lower end, where they were let into hollows cut into stones for their reception, and which formed a circulating ring around each, somewhat in the Tuscan manner. Between the columns, for about one fourth of the length of the shaft from the cornice downwards, was carved and ornamented wood-work, which might be termed the entablature, and was of a different color from the columns, which were universally red. This colonnade served to support that part of the roof which projected beyond the wall-plate, in a curve, turning up at the angles.20

Here Staunton compares material and structure of Chinese architectural columns with the European tradition in the manner of scientific illustration. In order to familiarize his audience with this exotic architecture, he appropriates European architectural terms to describe what was new to him. In a watercolor that was probably created on site, Alexander shows Macartney, Staunton, and the young Staunton following two Chinese officials who are guiding them around in the garden of the residence (Fig. 5.8). The stone barge is represented with a pavilion-like front and a stone room resembling a covered boat. Two Chinese figures are shown sitting and chatting in the barge. The original on-site sketch of the barge was later embellished in making the print (Fig. 5.9). The print, included in Costume of China, was likely based on these sketches since the depiction of the barge and its immediate environment are similar to that of the print. The print presents a finished version of the image in which the architecture and stone barge are painted in a variety of gentle colors with detailed ornamental patterns, especially those on the roofs and windows. In accordance with the verbal description, Alexander also added artificial rocks by the barge on which stand several bonsai. The background is decorated with a pagoda, pavilion, and pailou, in keeping with Chinese taste. Alexander’s representation of the Chinese gardens reveals close observation in the depiction of artificial rocks and the bonsai as well as touches catering to British enthusiasm for Chinese gardening. Prosperous cities along the travel route aroused great interest among embassy members, who observed and represented the scenery and landmarks in an accurate yet appealing manner. Such representations include a watercolor sketch depicting the city of Suzhou and two prints developed from this source. In the sketch, a boat 20

Staunton, An Authentic Account, Vol. 3, p. 140.

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Fig. 5.8 William Alexander, View of the Embassy’s residence at Beijing, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.9 The Embassy’s residence at Beijing, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

is shown crossing under the arched bridge, with houses and buildings along both banks. This work might have been the model that was later developed and expanded into a final print in Costume of China (Fig. 5.10), in which details and bright colors were applied to the architecture and figures.

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Fig. 5.10 View of a bridge in the environs of the city of Suzhou, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805. aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

In another print of Plate 35 in Staunton’s account, various bridges, houses, pavilions were further added into the bustling scene (Fig. 5.11). In these images, Alexander pays particular attention to the bridges. Staunton describes their materials and forms with scientific accuracy: Solid and permanent bridges are thrown over the canal in many parts of this province. Some of them were built of reddish granite…and some of a coarse grey marble. The arches of some of those bridges are of semicircular, and others an elliptical form. Some are in the form of a horse shoe, the space being widest near the top of the arch.21

Staunton also describes how boats passed under the bridge: The strong single masts of the yachts and barges were taken down…Those masts were readily lowered to pass under the bridges, some of which, however, were so lofty as to allow the vessels to pass under full sail.22

In these images, the boatmen are shown holding the long mast to navigate the barges and passing under the bridge, reflecting the acute observation of the artists and engineers. In depicting the cityscape of China, the artists and surveyors on the embassy worked together to represent and record the geographical features of these major cities. From the initial sketches made onsite to the finished paintings and prints, the artists transformed the cityscapes from graphic images to a livelier and more picturesque works that retained empirical accuracy while embellishing them with pictorial motifs that they collected during the journey. The blending of artistic and 21 22

Ibid. (1798, Vol. 4, p. 425). Ibid. (1798, Vol. 4, p. 426).

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Fig. 5.11 Chinese barges of the Embassy preparing to pass under a bridge, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

scientific elements enabled the British audience to absorb the new knowledge of Chinese cities through appealing images, rich in both information and aesthetic value.

5.2 Landscapes and Imperial Parks in the Picturesque Aesthetic Derived from the French pittoresque and Italian pittoresco, the word “picturesque” literally means “in the manner of a picture.”23 William Gilpin defines the term as “expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture” in his treatise An Essay upon Prints of 1768.24 According to Gilpin, in contrast to the beautiful which emphasizes smoothness and neatness, the Picturesque is distinguished by roughness and variety. In the 1770s, he traveled to remote regions of England, Scotland, and Wales where he kept a journal and made sketches. After these trips, he published five volumes of travel accounts which became popular guides for tourists seeking picturesque settings.25 Gilpin’s picturesque paintings are characterized by a 23

See the definition of “Picturesque” in Oxford English Dictionary. Andrews (1989, p. 56). 25 See “The Picturesque Tours” in Andrews (1989, pp. 85–240). 24

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Fig. 5.12 A view of the Emperor’s imperial park in Peking, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

tripartite structure with side screen trees, bridges in the mid-ground, and mountains in the background, all viewed from a low angle. Later Sir Uvedale Price picturesque gardens, advocating greater artistic freedom and a more relaxed style, in opposition to “Capability” Brown’s rigid “smoothing and leveling.” He distinguished the picturesque from the sublime and the beautiful, stating that each had distinct qualities and aroused different sensations. His picturesque approach focused on ruined Grecian temples and Palladian buildings as well as humbler subjects, such as hovels, cottages, dilapidated mills in which the few human figures would be gypsies or beggars.26 Picturesque taste was inherently elitist, embraced by the educated gentry who could afford to seek out and sketch idealized landscapes on the Grand Tour or within the British Isles.27 They were equipped with a Claude Glass and guidebooks and maps instructing them to stand on a particular spot to see a picturesque view. They learned how to modify their drawings to make them appear more refined, subtle, and delicate. The embassy members depicted such landscapes and imperial parks in Beijing and Rehe through collaboration between scientists and artists. In a watercolor depicting the imperial park of Beijing and a print (Plate 29 in Staunton’s account), Alexander depicts the famous white pagoda standing on the top of the hill in what is now Beihai Park (Fig. 5.12). A painting by Alexander is associated with the painting and print. 26 27

For the development of the picturesque theory, see Andrews (1989, pp. 58–59). Andrews (1989, pp. 67–83).

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Built in 1651 as a Tibetan Lama pagoda, the white pagoda was believed to protect the nation and its people. Alexander’s renderings make it clear that he examined the form, structure, and style of the white pagoda to accurately depict its three distinct parts: the base, body, and top. The mountain landscapes in the background were not visible from the vantage point used for the building. The images match Staunton’s description closely: It was not level like all the lands without the wall; some of it was raised into hills of steep ascent; the earth taken to form them left broad and deep hollows, now filled with water. Out of these artificial lakes, of which the margins were diversified and irregular, small islands rose with a variety of fanciful edifices, interspersed with trees. On the hills of different heights the principal palaces for the Emperor were erected. The whole had somewhat the appearance of enchantment. On the summit of the highest eminences were lofty trees surrounding summer-houses, and cabinets contrived for retreat and pleasure.28

Alexander depicts the topographic setting of the white pagoda using the Picturesque formula, representing the contours of the hills with irregular outlines and decorating them with pavilions and pagodas. Like Gilpin’s painting, he uses a tripartite structure, with the foreground framing the pavilion, an artificial lake in the middle ground and the mountains in the background with the white pagoda. The artist creates a harmonious and attractive landscape in which Chinese people are seen traveling on boats and enjoying the beautiful scenery. These images show that Alexander drew from various sources to accurately depict Chinese topography. Many of his sketches of pagodas, pavilions, and palatial buildings reveal a close study of their structure, style, and ornament. For example, a painting of a pavilion includes a high stele which was unlikely to have been part of the actual scene, but is typical of Chinese monuments that he saw during his travels. He was also influenced by the work of William Chambers, whose prints he held in his collection at the British Library. Chambers was a Scottish architect who traveled to China on three voyages of the Swedish East India Company and studied Chinese architecture and decoration. He is well-known for the Chinese pagoda at Kew Garden. Alexander must have studied Chambers’ work carefully to gain an understanding of the architecture of Chinese buildings. Staunton mentions in his writings that the pavilion in his painting was the site where the last emperor of the Ming dynasty committed suicide. According to history, the Chongzhen emperor actually hanged himself in Jingshan, the hill behind the Forbidden City, not far from Beihai. Alexander seemed to be confused about Beihai and Jingshan, and depicted the White Pagoda on top of the landscape of Jingshan according to verbal descriptions, though the representation of the mountain landscape is unlike either Beihai or Jingshan. The artist might have made a detailed sketch of the white pagoda, and documented in textual records that it is standing on a mountain by a lake in textual records. Then he followed Staunton’s textual description and created an imaginary scene of the site from his memory. The intersection of the topographical and picturesque aesthetics is more prominent for the representation of the Rehe landscape and imperial park representing the 28

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 121).

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collaboration of the artists, scientists, and surveyors on the embassy. After the British Embassy crossed the Great Wall, they began to carry out a scientific survey of the land of Tartary and its people. In Parish’s drawing, a range of high mountains appears in the background, on which stands a remarkable rock. Staunton writes: “One gentleman of the Embassy immediately sketched a drawing of it from the road, which was at a considerable distance.”29 He must be referring to Parish. Staunton continues: The ridges of the mountains went nearly parallel to the road. The ridges described almost horizontal lines, consisting of huge rocks of granite, differing much in size from each other, and arranged like the vertebrate of a quadruped …about midway between the upper ridge and the bottom of the valley was a perpendicular rock, or antique ruin, for its first appearance gave rise to both conjectures. Its height exceeded two hundred feet. It was sensibly wider at the top than at the base. Its form was irregular. Tall shrubs were growing from its upper surface.30

This rock can be identified as qingchuifeng (the peak of the hammer of the musical stone) which stands on the high mountains located over ten Chinese miles from the Mountain Resort Villa in the east. The rock is wide on the top and thin in the base with a height of 38.29 m according to modern measurement.31 Parish’s drawing accurately depicts the rock with the mulberry tree on the site (Fig. 5.13). He also paid careful attention to the vegetation and topography in the surrounding areas. Staunton describes: “the trees, beside different sorts of pines of no great size, were chiefly stunted oaks…to the size of shrubs.”32 This verbal description matches Parish’s depiction of a high pine tree in the foreground, with a few shrubs at the feet of the mountains in the middle ground. When the image was incorporated into another watercolor and engraved into print, the artist even added a vast lake and boat in the foreground, although the site is a mountainous area without lakes (Figs. 5.14 and 5.15). On the shore, a Chinese dwelling is shown at the foot of the hill among the trees. Staunton did mention residents in the mountains, but described that they had got goiters, or swelling neck which Dr. Gillan had carefully examined.33 However, in these two images, the figures are represented enjoying a happy, free, and healthy life in the mountains in keeping with Picturesque taste. Picturesque transformation of reality is more prominent in the depiction of the imperial park of Rehe, where the beautiful landscapes provided the artists inspiration and rich visual sources. On September 15, 1793, the embassy visited the imperial gardens in the Mountain Resort Villa and the Eight Outer Temples.34 There are several images depicting the gardens by Parish and Alexander. Parish drew a plan 29

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 204). Ibid. 31 The rock was recorded in Chinese writings that can be dated back to 1500 years, such as the geologist of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Li Daoyuan’s Shuijingzhu (Commentary on Waterways Classics). 32 Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 200). 33 Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, p. 202). 34 Qin and Gao (1998, 92). A Grand Council edict of September 1793 recorded the visit plan that was prepared for the Macartney Embassy: After the emperor passed by, the officials will lead the 30

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Fig. 5.13 Henry William Parish, View of the remarkable rock, 1793, ink and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.14 William Alexander, View of the remarkable rock, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Macartney Embassy to enter the gate of Huidij, and ride the horse at the feet of the mountain. They will arrive at the harbor of Wobei along the North bank, and take the boat to visit Yanyulou. Then, they will get off the boat at the harbor of Xilingchenxia, and watch the golden fish in Changlangyu. After that, they will visit the front and back places in Ruyizhou, and see the instruments. Then, they

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Fig. 5.15 View of the remarkable rock (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, print. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

detailing the geographical orientation of the park based on accurate measurement and surveying. In a watercolor sketch, Parish shows a lake view with the left shore forming a diagonal line leading to the remarkable rock among the mountains in the background. A bridge spans a densely wooded area of the lake. A cluster of huge rocks is shown at right on which stand a willow tree and building. The water lilies float on the surface of the water are noted in Staunton’s account. Staunton records: They rode through a verdant valley, in which several trees, particularly willows of an uncommonly large girth, were interspersed, and between which the grass was suffered to attain its most luxuriant height, with little interruption from cattle or the mower. Arriving at the shores of an extensive lake of an irregular form, they sailed upon it till the yachts, in which they embarked, were interrupted by a bridge throw over the lake in the narrowest part; and beyond which it seemed to lose itself in distance and obscurity. The surface of the water was partly covered with Lien-hwa...still adorned the lake with its spreading leaves and fragrant flowers.35

Alexander’s print shows a livelier image of the imperial garden in the aesthetic of the Picturesque (Fig. 5.16). He added several palaces on the shore of the lake which may reflect on Staunton’s descriptions: “There were other buildings erected on the pinnacles of the highest hills, and some buried in the dark recesses of the deepest vallies.”36 Or the added buildings may have been drawn from Chinese woodblock prints that Alexander brought back to Britain. In either case, Alexander had clearly devoted careful study to the architecture will take the boat to visit the front and back palaces in Jingshengyuese, and take the boat to the harbor of Wanhesongfeng. Finally, they will be brought back to their residence along Yulipo. 35 Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, 241). 36 Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, 242).

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Fig. 5.16 View of the imperial park at Rehe (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish and William Alexander, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection

of the buildings and topographic features of the landscape. At the top of a mountain, Alexander painted a pagoda that resembles the Yongyou Buddhist Temple located on the northeast area of the Garden of Ten Thousand Trees, with a striking rock formation on its east side. Although Alexander did not go to Rehe, he had read other members’ descriptions as well as using studies of pagodas he encountered on the way. Alexander worked on Parish’s sketch and re-created an image of imperial garden in the Picturesque formula giving it a ragged, irregular quality. On September 17, the embassy visited the Eight Outer Temples. The most important of these structures is the Putuo zongcheng zhimiao, which was built for the celebrations of the Qianlong emperor’s sixty-year birthday and his mother’s eightyyear birthday the next year. Modeled on the Potala in Tibet, it was built between 1767 and 1771. Parish noted this temple with the letter G in his map and drew an accurate plan, section, and elevation (Fig. 5.17). Based on this architectural drawing, Alexander created a watercolor sketch which depicts this magnificent temple of Lama (Fig. 5.18). The building has three parts: the entrance and various small temples, the white platform, and the great red platform. In the Picturesque manner, the drawing shows the building crouched among the mountains, with figures walking towards it. On its east side, a pagoda and a pavilion have been added in a sketchy style. The watercolor was later developed into Plate 27 in Staunton’s account, to which Alexander added the figures of monks, completed the temple with very detailed delineation of the architecture, and made the pagoda and pavilion more detailed, composed, and variegated (Fig. 5.19).

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Fig. 5.17 Plan of Potala, based on the drawings by Henry William Parish (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

The surveyors and artists on the embassy collaborated to represent the landscapes, imperial parks, and temples in Beijing and Rehe according to both topographical and picturesque aesthetics. While trying to be faithful to the topography of the landscapes, they nevertheless transformed them to reflect the Picturesque sensibility familiar to British audiences.

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Fig. 5.18 William Alexander, View of Potala, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.19 View of Potala, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

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5.3 The Sublime and Chinese Ruins Eighteenth-century Britain saw the rise of the representation of ruins in visual arts in both paintings and gardens. Ruins evoked a lost past and engendered a sense of awe. As William Marshall described, “Sublimity must rouse some extraordinary emotion in the mind.”37 Edmund Burke in his influential essay “A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” of 1757 suggested that astonishment was “the effect of the sublime in its highest degree.”38 Ruins stirred powerful feelings of terror, solitude, and vastness; as one scholar of the period commented, “no one of the least sentiment or imagination can look back upon an old or ruined edifice without feeling sublime emotions; …a thousand ideas cloud upon his mind, and fill him with awful astonishment.”39 In addition, the contemplation of ruins was associated with the emotional experiences of “pleasing melancholy” and “agreeable horror” in Picturesque aesthetics.40 Known as the age of Melancholy, British artists catered to this taste in representing decayed and ruined architecture and artefacts created by local people in past ages. By the mid-eighteenth century, the artistic representation of ruins was supplemented by the scientific inquiry that led to the emerging discipline of archaeology and the inclusion of the study of antiquarian artifacts as part of imperial expansion overseas.41 During this period, many educated Englishmen embarked on the Grand Tour of the Continent, affording opportunities to explore and enjoy the classical past of Greek and Roman civilizations, a practice that increased interest in ancient ruins. During the Seven Years’ War, as travel to Continental Europe became difficult, they began to visit decayed castles and ruined abbeys and monasteries within England, where they further cultivated their appreciation for ruins. Imperial expeditions also began seeking out and studying ruined ancient monuments in other parts of the world. Archaeology, which first emerged from the activities of amateur antiquarians, became a serious field of study based on scientific observation and classification of artefacts and architectural remains. Scholars published works on ancient monuments and buildings with detailed analysis of their forms and dimension in both text and image. They were widely circulated in the intellectual circles and provided first-hand knowledge ancient civilizations in distant lands. The appreciation of ruins dovetailed nicely with the aesthetics of the Picturesque and Sublime, which idealized ancient Rome and Greece as exemplars of reason and order. English Romantic painters also focused on depicting ruined Gothic abbeys and churches that were associated with melancholy reflections of “a harsher image of fruitless life and greedy death.”42 37 William Marshall’s 1795 review of the poem The Landscape, cited in Ashfield and de Bolla (1996, p. 276). 38 Burke (1759, pp. 95–96). 39 “On the pleasure arising from the sight of ruins or ancient structures,” European Magazine (1795), cited in Lowenthal (1985, p. 173). 40 Andrews (1989, p. 41). 41 Tiffin (2009, p. 525). 42 Ruppert (1982, p. 21).

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The scientists and artists in the embassy collaborated to represent Chinese ancient architecture, including ruins, in a way the was both scientifically accurate and in keeping with the Sublime aesthetic. Examples include depictions of the Great Wall, the Potala temple, and the tomb and pagoda in Hangzhou. The Great Wall was the most prominent military fortification the embassy visited. During their trip to Rehe, embassy members invited Qing officials to travel to the Great Wall in carriages brought from England. During the trip, they resided in the Imperial Dwelling Palace which can be identified as Longevity Imperial Dwelling Palace in Gubeikou (the ancient north pass). Located 120 km northeast of Beijing, Gubeikou is a stronghold between Shanhai Pass and Juyong Pass, and a direct route between the steppe and the imperial capital Beijing. On Sept. 5, the embassy observed the Great Wall at Gubeikou, a section of great strategic importance that was later linked to the much larger Ming Great Wall. During the Longqing and Wanli periods, the Gubeikou was renovated by Qi Jiguang with the construction of more watchtowers for permanent garrisoning, and the addition of new design features on the battlements.43 The embassy experienced Qi Jiguang’s architectural vision first hand. In one of his drawings, Parish drew a plan that depicts the traveling route from Nantianmen to Gubeikou, marking many military posts there as well as on the route from Beijing to Rehe. The drawing provided scientifically accurate information on the location of every fortress and the Great Wall, serving as a source military intelligence on Chinese defense forces. In his account, Staunton examined two types of towers with their walls, which Parish depicted in two watercolor drawings: Section and Elevation of the Wall and an Adjoining Watchtower at Gubeikou. Parish describes “the body of the great wall was an elevation of earth, retained on each side by a wall of masonry, and terraced by a platform of square bricks.” In his painting, he juxtaposes the side view and the sectional plan of the wall to show the materials used. For example, the sectional plan of the wall exposes the earth inside it, which is fortified with masonry covered bricks. Parish also paints the exterior of the tower and its wall with a blue color that indicates its materials. His written account describes an experiment he conducted in which he exposed the bricks to a red-hot fire and they did not contract. He also found the kilns where the bricks were produced. For the first tower, Parish’s drawing shows a one-story building above which stands a parapet with three embrasures or ports in front (Fig. 5.20). Parish also painted a two-story tower and drew five structural diagrams of the watchtower’s lower story, second story, platform at top, a section through A & B, and an elevation of part of the wall on 1/2 scale (Fig. 5.21). Parish drew the Great Wall in an accurate scale in which an inch is intended to represent 20 feet. He carefully examined the structure of the top, lower, side parts, and sectional plan of the tower, and measured the length, width, and thickness of the architecture with

43

For more information on Qi Jiguang’s reconstruction of the Great Wall, see Lindesay (2007, p. 224). Lindesay introduces such new design features as merlons with angled edges to provide wider-angle observation and firing opportunities for defenders, and openings at pavement level for them to drop rock bombs.

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Fig. 5.20 Henry William Parish, Plan of the Great Wall, 1793, pen and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.21 Henry William Parish, Plan of the Great Wall, 1793, pen and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

detailed and accurate numbers which he included in the print in Staunton’s account (Fig. 5.22). For example, in Figure 1, he shows the lower story as a square intersected with arched passages in the form of a cross. Figure 2 shows the interior of the room with four square piers, and Figure 4 shows the sectional view with three paralleled arches.

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Fig. 5.22 Plan of the Great Wall, based on the drawings by Henry William Parish (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

In his quest for detail, he examined every part of the wall in an architectural plan isolated from its natural environment. In addition to this scientific diagram, Staunton included a picturesque view of the Great Wall set in its landscape. Parish first created a sketch of the Gubeikou Great Wall (Fig. 5.23).

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Fig. 5.23 Henry William Parish, View of the Great Wall, 1793, pen and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Then Alexander created a more finished watercolor that was made into the print. Parish’s sketch, probably made on-site, shows the Great Wall in its mountainous landscape. Staunton’s (1798) account describes the north part of Gubeikou are the Wohu mountain in the west and the Panlong mountain in the east: What the eye could, from a single spot, embrace of those fortified walls, carried along the ridges of hills, over the tops of the highest mountains, descending into the deepest vallies, crossing upon arches over rivers, and doubled and trebled in many parts to take in important passes, and interspersed with towers or massy bastions at almost every hundred yards, as far as the sight could reach, presented to the mind an undertaking of stupendous magnitude.44

Comparing the drawing with the actual landscape of Gubeikou, Lindesay finds that Parish’s representation is highly realistic and accurate in contrast to what some scholars have claimed to be fanciful and imaginative.45 In the foreground, a two-story tower is shown in a ruined state, connected with a long wall leading to the top of the mountain. The topographical landscape is very much like the actual environment of the Wohu Mountain, which is craggy and precipitous. In the right lower corner of the drawing, Parish depicts himself making sketches, and other embassy members observing the Great Wall. This motif conveys the idea that Parish created the image on the spot, indicating that it might be the first realistic depiction of the Great Wall. Since Alexander was absent from the trip to Rehe, he based his watercolor on Parish’s drawing, which was further developed into the print in Plate 24 in Staunton’s account (Fig. 5.24). 44

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 183). Lindesay carried out t a field trip in which she found that the landscape highly resembles the Wohu Mountain, and even identifies the Sister Towers in the drawing.

45

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Fig. 5.24 View of the Great Wall, based on the painting by Henry William Parish (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

In these works, he follows the pictorial composition and architectural structure of the towers of Parish’s drawing, but replaces the embassy members with Manchu travelers and soldiers. Alexander depicts people transporting goods using doublehumped camels and recorded that the camels were loaded with valuable furs from the Tartary or with charcoal used for cooking in Beijing. In the right lower corner, he also depicts several Manchu soldiers leading a horse. By including these human figures, Alexander seeks to capture the features of nomadic life of Manchu people outside the Great Wall in a way that was empirically accurate. The Picturesque and Sublime aesthetics, by contrast, peopled ruined landscapes with idle and itinerant figures, as Gilpin (1792) notes: The characters, which are most suited to these scenes of grandeur, are such as impress us with some idea of greatness, wildness, or ferocity; all which touch on the sublime Figures in long, folding draperies; gypsies; banditti; and soldiers, -not in modern regimentals…are all marked with one or other of these characters: and mixing with the magnificence, wildness, or horror of the place, they properly coalesce; and reflecting the same images, add a deeper tinge to the character of the scene.46

The motif of ruins is especially prominent in the embassy’s depiction of the tombs and pagoda in Hangzhou. During their stay at Hangzhou, Wang Daren invited John Barrow and other embassy members to sail across the West Lake. As Staunton describes, Alexander painted the lake among the picturesque mountains on which stand temples and pagodas as well as houses and gardens of Mandarins (Fig. 5.25).

46

Gilpin (1792, pp. 45–46).

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Fig. 5.25 William Alexander, View of the West Lake with Leifeng Pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

The Leifeng Pagoda stands on one summit, a building which Alexander had carefully observed and rendered in one of his sketches. The watercolor the artist shows the four-story pagoda with a ruined top (Fig. 5.26). Compared with a photo taken around 1924 when the pagoda crumbled, Alexander’s depiction is highly accurate, capturing both the overall architecture and details such as the molding cornices and construction materials. He also painted this pagoda covered with grass and moss, which corresponds to both the verbal description in Staunton’s account and the actual appearance in the photo. Alexander indicates the height of the pagoda using human figures including a monk and porter as reference points. According to Staunton’s account, it was no more than one hundred and twenty feet high.47 Alexander’s rendering reveals an antiquarian interest in ancient Chinese buildings and a commitment to accurately representing their architecture. The final print of Plate 41 in Staunton’s account was developed from a sketch by Alexander (Fig. 5.27), in which the mourning monk in the sketch is replaced by images of tombs on the bank of the West Lake. Alexander’s interest in tombs is made clear by the sketches he did of different tombs during his journey from the south to the north of inland China. According to Staunton’s description, the area was a burial site where one could find every form of tomb, in stone, wood, and earth. He describes tombs “built in the form of small houses, about six or eight feet high, painted almost blue, and fronted with white pillars, and ranged in the form of a pigmy street.”48 This account is reflected in one of Alexander’s sketches showing a house-like tomb standing beside 47 48

Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 445). Ibid.

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Fig. 5.26 William Alexander, View of the Leifeng Pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

the stupa. Staunton noted that these tombs belonged to people of high rank and “were situated, apart, on the slope of hills, on terraces of a semicircular form, and supported by breast-walls of stone, and doors of black marble, inscribed with the names, qualities, and virtues of the interred, at length; and oftentimes obelisks were erected upon the terraces.”49 The hoof-shaped tomb that Alexander painted at Danes Island in Canton corresponds with Staunton’s description. Alexander also completed an on-site drawing in Whampoa in Canton of an earth-mounted tomb covered with an umbrella, flowers, slips of silk and painted paper. He appears to have mixed together visual sources of different tombs to make the image as informative as possible. In depicting the landscapes with tombs, Alexander expresses a number of themes: a feeling of melancholy and solitude, the impermanence of life and the power of nature. 49

Ibid.

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Fig. 5.27 View of the West Lake with the Leifeng Pagoda, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Beside the tombs stands a monk paying respect to the deceased under a willow, which Staunton identified as “a species of weeping thuya, or lignum vita.”50 The vegetation covering the pagoda creates a gloomy and sullen atmosphere, which arouses a pleasurable sense of melancholy. The effect goes beyond visual interest, as Sarah Tiffin proposes: “It not only added a tonal interest and variety that enhanced a ruin’s formal picturesque qualities, but also promoted mediations on the all-consuming power of nature and insignificance of humankind in the greater scheme of things.”51 The representation of the ruined pagoda and tombs embraces the Picturesque and Sublime aesthetics, and reflects on the passage of time and insignificance of humans in nature’s epic sweep. The varied and irregular forms of the surrounding mountains amplify this effect. These images of the Great Wall and West Lake with the Leifeng pagoda are typical of Britain’s development from the antiquarian tradition to the scientific discipline of archaeology, as they reveal a careful study of architectural monuments. At the same time, these ancient structures were depicted in a ruined state that was intended to cater to the Sublime aesthetics of the Romantics. The use of ruins might also have served as a metaphor for a declining and stagnant Chinese civilization, a view the embassy held as representatives of what they believed to be a superior civilization. The collaboration among the artists, engineers, and surveyors testified to the close relation between art and science in conveying knowledge of Chinese landscapes. 50 51

Ibid. Tiffin (2009, p. 532).

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Embassy members researched and represented important landmarks like pagodas and pavilions along the Grand Canal that testified their efforts to collect information on Chinese architectural forms. The riverscapes along the canal provide important information on the lifestyle of the people and Chinese transportation systems. The embassy’s engineers researched and recorded mechanisms like water sluices, which the artists contextualized it in pictorial representations. The different perspectives enabled the British audience to learn about Chinese hydraulic technology in while also seeing these features in an artistic context.

5.4 Riverscapes Along the Grand Canal The embassy was keenly interested in the riverscape along the Grand Canal and recorded the river transportation system from a scientific perspective. They traveled along the Grand Canal from October 7 to December 19, 1793 when they returned from Beijing to Canton. Alexander accompanied Macartney on the inland journey from Beijing to Hangzhou, but was unfortunately unable to observe the landscape from Hangzhou to Canton, because he was ordered to board the Hindostan and travel from Zhushan to Canton on the sea.52 For the first part of the journey, Alexander observed the scenery along the canal, and produced a series of sketches which were later developed into several important prints. These images represent the scenery along the canal and the lives of local people, showing Alexander’s particular interest in the communication systems of the Grand Canal, which testified to the high level of Chinese construction and water transportation techniques. The Grand Canal was a massive project reflecting the national identity of China that came about during the Sui Dynasty (581–618). Commissioned by the Yangdi, the project involved hundreds of thousands of workers. It took only six years for the slave laborers to build this huge waterway that stretched from Beijing to Hangzhou with Luoyang at its center. The canal was expanded during the Yuan Dynasty when it crossed the Yellow River downstream, and the section between Tianjin and Beijing was built.53 Lord Macartney took the shortest route connecting Hangzhou and the Grand Canal to Canton. As he recorded, “the great route from (Beijing) to (Canton) is by way of (Nanjing) and through the Poyang lake but as we left (Nanjing) on our right hand in order to come to (Hangzhou) we deviated from common track by which means we have had an opportunity of seeing a part of China which probably no European ever visited before.”54 Alexander created a few major paintings and prints that can be identified as the riverscape of Linqing, entrance of the Yellow River, Baoying Lake, and Jinshan. The first important city the embassy encountered along the Grand Canal was Linqing in Hebei province, where Alexander created several sketches and drawings. 52

Legouix (1980, p. 12). Bishop (1997, pp. 20–28). 54 George Staunton’s account, cited in Bishop (1997, p. 27). 53

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Fig. 5.28 William Alexander, View of the Linqing pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

On Oct. 22, 1793, the embassy arrived at Linqing and observed a pagoda of nine stories. Standing on the bank of the Grand Canal, the Linqing pagoda is said to have been built in the Ming Dynasty. Staunton described this type of architecture in general as well as the Linqing pagoda in particular: These buildings are called by the natives Ta, and are most numerous in hilly parts of the country, upon the summits of which they are frequently erected. They are generally from one hundred and twenty to one hunred and sixty feet high, which is equal to four or five of their diameters at the base; and consist mostly of an unequal number, five, seven, or nine galleries or stories, diminishing as the rise, with as many projecting roofs… (and it) may have been meant to commemorate either the undertaking or the accomplishment of this canal, as a work of no less genius than national identity.55

This description emphasizes the scientific research on the structure of Chinese pagodas, and in the case of the Linqing pagoda, links the function of this building to the construction of the Grand Canal. Alexander created two watercolors of Linqing scenery. The first, apparently sketched on site, shows the pagoda dominating the center of the picture (Fig. 5.28). In a more finished watercolor and print, Alexander added a village around the pagoda, where many local people engaged in various activities, such as fishing, chatting, resting, and strolling (Figs. 5.29 and 5.30). 55

Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, pp. 380–381).

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Fig. 5.29 William Alexander, View of the Linqing pagoda, 1793, watercolor on paper. Imagery courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.30 View of the city of Linqing of the Grand Canal, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

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Fig. 5.31 View of the Golden Island, based on the drawing of William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

The study of the pagodas along the Grand Canal can also be observed in the representation of Golden Island or Jinshan, which is the only island in the Yangtze River. No longer an island now, it has become part of the city of Zhenjiang of Jiangsu province. Staunton wrote that it “rose almost perpendicularly out of the river, and is interspersed with gardens and pleasure houses.”56 On top of the island was the famous Jinshan temple and pagoda of over 1600 years: “it belonged to the Emperor, who had built upon it a large and handsome palace, and on the highest eminence several temples and pagodas.”57 In a watercolor, Alexander represents the Golden Island with the prominent pagoda in the center of the image. In the print of Plate 39 in Staunton’s account, Alexander uses the same composition, but adds more large junks and barges to make it a flourishing scene (Fig. 5.31). Because the Chinese canals had many bends and a strong current, the water works differ greatly from those of Europe, for example, in the construction floodgates on the Grand Canal. As the embassy barges sailed towards the South, Alexander created several images with the subject of boats passing the sluice or floodgate. Plate 34 in Staunton’s account shows a plan and section of a sluice or flood gate and of an inclined plane enabling vessels to pass between canals of different levels (Fig. 5.32). There are six images on this diagram. Figure 1 shows plan of a sluice and bridge in which the drawer indicates the plank that forms the flood gate, the horizontal capstans, and the bridge moving on a roller. Figure 2 shows a section of the sluice, and Figure 3 56 57

Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 424). Ibid.

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Fig. 5.32 Plan of the sluice (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

shows elevation of the bridge. Figure 4 is a plan of an inclined plane between two canals of different levels, with its section shown in Figure 5. The explanation of the mechanism of the sluices is explained in the note on the print.58 Staunton also describes the process of vessels passing through the sluice gates. From the upper to the lower levels of the canal, the vessel slides down by its own gravity, and from the lower to the upper, it is drawn up by means of bars fixed in one or more capstans operated with the assistance of nearly a hundred men.59 The diagram is a scientific drawing in which every part of the sluice has been measured, calculated, and carefully composed, drawing on the expertise of the embassy’s scientists and engineers. In two of the representative watercolors, Alexander depicts the moment when the barge is getting ready to pass the sluice, and the moment when the barge is flowing from high to low point (Figs. 5.33 and 5.34). According to Staunton’s account: The flood-gates consist merely of a few planks let down separated one upon another, by grooves cut into the sides of the two solid piers of stone that project, one from each bank, 58

The text in the print of Plate 34 records: “the sluices or flood gates generally consist of eleven or twelve loose planks that slide in the groove at into the stone abutment and kept down by spars forced vertically upon them. These planks are drawn up and suffered to float off at one end when vessels are about to pass through. The bridge is withdrawn upon rollers fixed in its frame which runs upon loose spars. The communication between canals by means of inclined planes occurs only where the surface of the country is irregular. When one capstan on each pier is formed insufficient to have up layer vessels additional ones are put down into holes read make for the purpose…” 59 Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 383).

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Fig. 5.33 William Alexander, View of barges passing through the sluice, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 5.34 William Alexander, View of barges passing through the sluice, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

leaving a space in the middle just wide enough to admit a passage for the largest vessels employed upon the canal.60

In another ink drawing, the plank is shown raised while one barge has just passed, followed by another barge (Fig. 5.35). 60

Ibid., p. 382.

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Fig. 5.35 William Alexander, View of barges passing through the sluice, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

The raised level of water forms a slope on which the boat is slipping down as represented in the latter image. Staunton describes the process: The floodgates consist merely of a few planks let down separated one upon another, by grooves cut into the sides of the two solid piers of stone that project, one from each bank, leaving a space in the middle just wide enough to admit a passage for the largest vessels employed upon the canal.61

The print of Plate 35 in Staunton’s account provides a complete and detailed image of the boat passing the sluice (Fig. 5.36). On the piers of both sides stand soldiers who were responsible for raising the gate. The Yellow River was another focus of the embassy’s scientific observations and research. Approaching Shandong province, Alexander painted a watercolor of the entrance of the Yellow River (Fig. 5.37). Staunton describes “a continued chain of towns and handsome villages, an immense number of vessels of all kinds, and a most thronged population, announced the approach of the Yellow River.”62 As the water level in the canal to the north had dropped in early November, many grain barges were getting ready to pass the Yellow River towards the North to Beijing. The Yellow River proved to be an impressive sight to the Embassy, particularly to Barrow, who used his expertise in mathematics to make a conservative estimate of the average width, depth, and velocity of the river, and further determined the amount of mud suspended in the water.63 61

Ibid., p. 382. Ibid., p. 402. 63 Ibid., pp. 408–412. 62

5.4 Riverscapes Along the Grand Canal

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Fig. 5.36 Barges passing through the sluice, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Fig. 5.37 William Alexander, View of entrance of the Yellow River, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

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Fig. 5.38 William Alexander, View of the Baoying Lake, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

A watercolor by Alexander showing a boat transporting grain and wheat also reveals the construction technique of the Grand Canal and its embankment (Fig. 5.38). Barrow’s journal corroborated the depiction: The country being level and abounding with lakes and marshy grounds, it was carried upon mound of earth kept together by retaining walls of stone the whole distance, which is about ninety miles, Beijing in parts no less than twenty feet above the general level of the country; and the sheet of water it contained was two hundred feet in width, running sometimes at the rate of three miles an hour. Canals of communication supplied with from the westward; and the superfluous water was let offer upon the low marshes. The tops of the walls (Baoying) were just on a level with the surface of the water in the canal, so that if the bank opposite to it were to burst, the whole city must inevitably inundated.64

In the painting, the Baoying Lake is separated by an embankment of earth from the Grand Canal to the right bordered by lovely towns and villages. Since the Sui Dynasty, taxes on wheat and rice were levied on the peasants along the Yangtze River and sent to the capital of Beijing as provincial tributes to meet the requirements of the imperial court. In Plate 36 of the print entitled View of the Lake Paoyng where is separated from the Grand Canal by an Embankment of Earth, which was developed from the watercolor, the right side of the picture shows the Grand Canal on which grain barges sailing by, handled by officers and troops (Fig. 5.39). The landscapes created by the embassy exhibit both artistic and scientific elements, combining Picturesque and Sublime aesthetics with topographical representation. In the interest of science, Barrow and Parrish created several important 64

John Barrow cited in Bishop (1997, p. 116).

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Fig. 5.39 View of the Lake Paoyng where is separated from the Grand Canal by an embarkment of earth, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

drawings and scientific diagrams that illustrate Chinese architecture and transportation methods as well as cartographic sketches that helped with geographical orientation and navigation. Alexander created these drawings in keeping with an artistic formula favoring rugged, varied, and irregular landscapes that distinguished them from more objective scientific illustrations. In addition to geographical considerations, images of the Great Wall, Potala in Rehe, and the West Lake also embraced the romantic taste for ruins that is linked to both the discipline of archaeology and the aesthetic of the Sublime. The relationship between text and image provides key information for examining the application and blending of scientific and artistic elements. Most of the verbal descriptions are straightforward geographical and geological descriptions of Chinese landscapes. And while the visual representations seek to accurately represent this scientific knowledge, they have an overlay of Picturesque and Sublime elements intended to captivate British viewers. The cross-fertilization of scientific and artistic elements reflects the embassy’s twin objectives, to further empirical knowledge of foreign lands and to express Britain’s imperial ambition in the age of global expansion. The embassy gained rich scientific knowledge of Chinese lands, rivers, architecture, and monuments through observation, analysis and investigation, making them more familiar to elite British audiences. Through art, the embassy recreated Chinese landscapes to reflect the Picturesque and Sublime aesthetics. Like other distant lands, China became part of the world system that the British empire was eager to incorporate into their world view.

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References Andrews, Malcolm. 1989. The search for the Picturesque: Landscape aesthetics and tourism in Britain, 1760–1800. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Ashfield, Andrew, and Peter de Bolla. 1996. The Sublime: A reader in British eighteenth-century aesthetic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bishop, Kevin. 1997. China’s imperial way: Retracing an historical trade and communications route from Beijing to Hong Kong, 1997. Hong Kong: The Guide Book Company Limited. Burke, Edmund. 1759. A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London: R. and Dodsley. Edney, Matthew H. 1997. Mapping a Europe: The geographical construction of British India, 1765–1843, 1997. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Gascoigne, John. 1994. Joseph Banks and the English enlightenment: Useful knowledge. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Gilpin, William. 1792. Three essays: On Picturesque Beauty; On Picturesque travel; and on sketching landscape: to which is added a poem, On Picturesque painting. London: R. Blamire. Herrmann, Luke. 1965. Paul Sandby in Scotland: A sketch-book. The Burlington Magazine 107 (750): 466–468. Hughes, Peter. 1975. Paul Sandby’s tour of Wales with Joseph Banks. The Burlington Magazine 117 (686): 452–457. Legouix, Susan. 1980. Image of China: William Alexander. London: Jupiter Books Publishers. Lindesay, William. 2007. The Great Wall revisited: From the Jade Gate to Old Dragon’s head. London: Frances Lincoln Limited Publishers. Lowenthal, David. 1985. The past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Qin, Guojing, and Huanting Gao. 1998. Emperor Qianlong and Macartney. Beijing: Forbidden City Publishing House. Ruppert, John Hutchins. 1982. A ruin aesthetic. Thesis submitted to Rochester Institute of Technology. Staunton, George. 1798. An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. London: W. Bulmer and Co. for G. Nicol. The Geological Society of London and the Royal Geographical Society. https://www.geolsoc.org. uk/society, https://www.rgs.org/about/the-society/history-and-future. Accessed on February 7, 2022. Thomas, Greg M. 2002. The topographical aesthetic in French tourism and landscape. NineteenthCentury Art Worldwide 1 (1). http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring02/85-spring02/ spring02article/198-the-topographical-aesthetic-in-french-tourism-and-landscape. Accessed on February 7, 2022. Tianjin Archives. 2014. The story of the Canal in Tianjin. Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Press. Tiffin, Sarah. 2009. Java’s ruined candis and the British picturesque ideal. Bulletin of SOAS 72: 3. Zhong, Xiaomin. 2011. Tianjin geography. Beijing Normal University Press.

Chapter 6

Picturing Chinese People

In keeping with the emerging discipline of ethnography, the Macartney Embassy was keenly interested in examining the life and culture of the Chinese people. The mission’s investigations focused on both the imperial court and ordinary people. Physiognomy was a popular discipline at the time, so the descriptions purport to convey the moral values of subjects through their facial features, including those of imperial figures. In addition to these more speculative inquiries, the embassy recorded the occupations within Chinese society, including diverse forms of craftsmanship and related industries. The embassy also examined the status of women in society, their role in the family, and how they were treated by men. And they considered the impact of other key aspects of Chinese culture, including religious practices, forms of punishment, and the legal and political systems that provided a foundation for the social order. These elements, considered in relation to British society, helped shape Western perceptions of Chinese civilization. The scope of inquiry was in keeping with the emerging European intellectual focus on “the science of man.”

6.1 Ethnography in Global Visual Culture It is a largely accepted view that the discipline of human science is an invention of eighteenth-century Europe.1 Spurred by the Scientific Revolution with its belief in progress and rationality, natural philosophers forged a science of nature, while Enlightenment thinkers sought to follow this trend to create a science of men.2 The mechanical laws of the physical sciences were applied to the study of the human

1

Moravia (1980, pp. 247–268). It includes epistemological liberalization, bringing the earth the “whole” of man, the rehabilitation of human corporeity, geographical and anthropological openness towards the “other,” and the sciences of the “different.” 2 Fox (1995, p. 3). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_6

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body, which was believed to operate like a natural machine.3 The best-known work about the science of man is David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) in which he wrote that Human Nature “is only the science of man, and yet has been hitherto the most neglected. ’Twill be sufficient for me, if I can bring it a little more into fashion.”4 During the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the intellectuals showed an interest in studying both the mind and culture of human beings, giving rise to physical and social anthropology which became professionalized in the early and mid-nineteenth century.5 The historical focus on the science of man resulted in the discipline of “conjectural history” that was formulated by the historians of the Scottish Enlightenment. Dugald Stewart explained that conjectural history rises from the comparison between European intellectual acquirements, opinions, manners and institutions, and those in primitive tribes. The underlying assumption was that civilization resulted from a gradual transition from “the first simple efforts of uncultivated nature to a state of things so wonderfully artificial and complicated.” Thus, the Scottish historians overlaid factual information with a conjectural methodology.6 The conjectural historians described the four-stage linear progression of hunting, pasturage, agriculture, and commerce in human society. The approach refers not only to economic complexity but also to the morality of human beings. The subjects of conjectural history include language; the history of sciences; the arts; government; and opinions, manners and institutions.7 In many of the sketches and drawings by European global expeditions, the artists followed a pictorial convention of ethnography. As early as 1771, the German historian and linguist August Ludwig Schlozer in Gottingen used the term “Ethnographie” in his work, but it was not until 1834 that the formal concept of ethnography first appeared in a journal, and became the name for a gallery in the British Museum in 1845.8 In general, the late eighteenth century witnessed a great advancement in human sciences, and came to be called a period of the “conceptualization of ethnography.”9 However, European visual conventions of ethnographical representation date back to the sixteenth century. For example, in De Bry’s depiction of natives in the Americas, he treated the human figures of a woman and child as a diagram that likely reflects the influence of anatomical drawings by artists like Vesalius. De Bry did not emphasize the physiognomy of the figures, but depicted them as a typespecimen. This ethnographic convention of representing foreigners as specimens of

3

Ibid. Hume (1739), cited in Fox (1995, p. 2). 5 Wolker (1995, p. 32). 6 Hopfl (1978, pp. 19–40). 7 Ibid. (1978, p. 20). 8 For the rise of ethnography, see Vermeulen (1995, pp. 39–59). 9 Ibid. (1995, p. 39). 4

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Fig. 6.1 Alexander and Daniel, Comparison of a Chinese and a Hottentot (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish and William Alexander, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection

natural history was continued and developed in the eighteenth century, as seen in Johannes Schuamaker’s depiction of African natives.10 During its journey to China, the Macartney Embassy depicted the specific physicality of various people in a precise and accurate manner typical of ethnography. In Travels in China, for example, Barrow used Alexander’s image of the head of a Chinese man to compare with the that of a Hottentot drawn by Daniel, and concluded that they were so similar that ancient trade might have occurred between China and east coast of Africa (Fig. 6.1). In this print, the heads of a Chinese man and Hottentot were juxtaposed like samples, and their facial features were carefully studied, as in the description: The form of their persons, in the remarkable smallness of the joints and the extremities, their voices and manner of speaking, their temper, their color and features, and, in particular, that singularly shaped eye, rounded in the corner next the nose, like the end of an ellipsis, probably of Tartar or Scythian origin, are nearly alike.11

The comparison highlights the great attention that the artists and scientists paid to the physicality of people in the world, a study that was an essential to research on global ethnography. 10

For the brief introduction of the ethnographical convention in western art, see Joppien and Smith (1985, pp. 6–8). 11 Barrow (1805, p. 33).

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The first and third volumes of Alexander’s drawings in the collection of the British Library contain a number of watercolor sketches that depict people from different regions. Alexander recorded their physical characteristics, costumes, and manners, and labeled them with geographical and racial information. For example, Alexander depicted people of St. Jago in a pair, showing the influence of the earlier ethnographical tradition, such as Linschoten’s Itinerario of 1596 (Fig. 6.2) The male and female figures are shown in frontal and back views in specific postures. The artist simplified the background seascape in order to give more focus to the human figures. The nudity of their upper bodies indicated their primitive lifestyle. The scientific expeditions of James Cook also produced a series of portraits of native people, such as the depiction of New Zealanders with tattoos, which followed the scientific method of ethnography. Cook’s voyages served as a model for other British expeditions owing to their scientific nature. Advised by Banks, Alexander must have received inspiration from this type of work, and he created several watercolors that examined the physicality of native people. For example, in Alexander’s portrait of a slave in Rio de Janerio, the artist focused on the facial features of the figure, and his curled hair and dark complexion, in order to emphasize his racial identity (Fig. 6.3).

Fig. 6.2 William Alexander, Natives of St. Jago, 1797, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

6.2 Qianlong Emperor and the Imperial Court

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Fig. 6.3 William Alexander, Portrait of a slave at Rio de Janerio, 1792, pen on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

As part of the imperial project informed by conjectural history, British scientists were engaged in collecting data on all the people on the earth, and ranking them according to different civilizational levels through visual images.

6.2 Qianlong Emperor and the Imperial Court The work of the Macartney Embassy effected a transition in the representation of Chinese emperorship in Europe from imagined and stereotyped symbols to a more realistic depiction. In the visual images of European art works of Chinoiserie, the image of the Manchu emperor reflected European taste for exoticism rather than realistic depiction, as seen in Francois Boucher’s The Audience of the Emperor of

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China. The Macartney Embassy, for the first time, gained opportunities to observe and study various aspects of the imperial court. Although their meeting with Qianlong was rather brief, the embassy members were able to see the imperial countenance and manner of the Manchu emperor, and they studied his rulership and lifestyle from textual sources and from conversations with court members. Alexander’s portraits of Qianlong and court members were influenced by the study of physiognomy, which was very popular and influential in Britain in the late eighteenth century. This new science was based on the idea that human character could be revealed in facial features. It became the rival of phrenology, which sought to interpret personality from the shapes and positions of forms on the skull.12 Johann Kaspar Lavater, the best known physiognomist of that period, published his most celebrated work Essays on Physiognomy from 1775 to 1778. After its initial success in Germany, it was translated into English editions in the 1780s, and by the 1790s no fewer than twelve English versions were presented in five different translations.13 Lavater’s theory emphasized that each individual had his/her distinctness that reflects moral values. Alexander applied similar methods and strategies in portraying Chinese people. There are four surviving portraits of Qianlong by Alexander, which carefully record his physiognomy, manner, and costume. The first sketch showing the emperor’s head was made in ink and probably based on the one time when Alexander met him (Fig. 6.4). In his journal, he describes the moment in Beijing when the embassy greeted the Qianlong emperor upon his return from Rehe on September 30, 1793: The Mandarins employed and connected with the Embassy, stood behind us, dressed in their habits of ceremony, while we were kneeling when the Emperor passed by, one of these thinking my bow was not sufficiently respectful to his monarch actually put his hand behind my neck and bowed my head almost to the dust, perhaps my eagerness to see all that was possible of this splendid sight, might shorten the inclination of the head on this memorable occasion.14

Staunton described Qianlong as “perfectly unreserved, cheerful, and unaffected,” and “his eyes were full and clear, and his countenance open,” and Barrow wrote that “his eye was dark, quick, and penetrating, his nose rather aquiline, and his complexion, even at this advanced age, was florid.”15 Alexander captured these details in his drawing. For example, he depicts the eyes of Qianlong bright and piercing, a reflection of his acute and quick mind. The up-tilted corners of the mouth give a sense of benevolence that indicate his wise, just, and effective rulership. The second portrait was probably based in part on the first portrait and in part on paintings of the emperor by European Jesuit painters active in the imperial court (Fig. 6.5). Comparing another portrait of the head of Qianlong with Giuseppe Panzi’s work, it is apparent that their facial features, hat, and costume are very similar. Both 12

Crawford (1977, pp. 49–60). Graham (1961, pp. 561–572). 14 William Alexander’s Journal (1793), cited in Sloboda (2014, p. 33). 15 Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 233, 234), Barrow (1805, p. 152). 13

6.2 Qianlong Emperor and the Imperial Court

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Fig. 6.4 William Alexander, Portrait of Qianlong, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

of these works show Qianlong in a frontal view with sharp almond-shaped eyes, a straight nose, and a poised mouth that would reflect his calm personality and wise demeanor. Through such attention to physiognomy, Alexander probably intended to reveal the personality and morality of Qianlong. The healthy and energetic facial representation was a reflection of his active and powerful mind. Barrow described him “as prompt in conceiving, as resolute in executing, his plans of conquest, he seemed to command success.”16 He noted Qianlong’s action of easing taxes and administering relief in seasons of distress but remaining “no less vindictive and relentless to his 16

Barrow (1805, p. 152).

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Fig. 6.5 William Alexander, Portrait of Qianlong, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

enemies.”17 It was through the features of physiognomy that Alexander transmitted this spirit and mindset. In addition to physiognomy, the costume and physical manner also reflect Qianlong’s personality and action. Alexander’s third portrayal, a highly developed watercolor, shows the emperor dressed in a blue-grey coat over a gold robe, and seated leisurely on an imperial chair against a large pillar (Fig. 6.6). He depicts the face of the emperor based on his head portrait while the costume and posture were probably developed from Castiglione’s representation. This watercolor was later developed into a print in Staunton’s account (Fig. 6.7). Staunton describes Qianlong: His Imperial Majesty had, however, in fact, put such order in the investigation of public affairs, and had made such an excellent distribution of his time, that he found leisure to cultivate some of the polite arts, without neglecting the concerns of his crown; he wrote 17

Ibid.

6.2 Qianlong Emperor and the Imperial Court

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Fig. 6.6 William Alexander, Portrait of Qianlong, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

even poems, which indicate taste and fancy, with an attentive view of nature. They are less remarkable for invention, that for philosophical and moral truths; and resemble more the epics of Voltaire, than those of Milton.18

The comments suggest that Qianlong was not only a political ruler, but also a literati-scholar with high cultural attainment. In both the watercolor and engraving, Alexander captures the moment when the emperor was seated in a poised and relaxed manner on the throne, while resting his left foot on the petal. This pose reflects his ease and calmness in dealing with various affairs. At the same time, his elegant demeanor indicates his deep cultivation in arts. 18

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 267).

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Fig. 6.7 Portrait of Qianlong, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

The fourth portrait is a print in Alexander’s Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese, which shows the emperor as a type or symbol of power, reflecting his good health and vigor (Fig. 6.8). There is no sketch or drawing by Alexander related to this print. It emphasizes his physical configuration and manner more than his facial characteristics, showing the elongated, slim, and fit body. The caption says Qianlong “had all appearance of a hale, vigorous man of sixty” although the sketch was taken when he was eighty-three

6.2 Qianlong Emperor and the Imperial Court

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Fig. 6.8 Portrait of Qianlong (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

years old.19 Barrow noted similarly that the emperor “was perfectly upright,” and “once had possessed great bodily strength.”20 This depiction relates to Qianlong’s 19 20

Alexander (1814, caption of Plate II). Barrow (1805, p. 152).

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racial identity as a Manchu who practiced hunting even in old age and thus possessed a strong body and sound health. The image deemphasizes the facial features of the emperor, borrowing much of the visual information from Alexander. In contrast to the earlier images of Chinese emperors in the art works of Chinoiserie, which emphasized strange looking and exaggerated costume, Qianlong is represented as an individual. The artist endeavored to capture his facial features, physical body, manner, and costume with a more realistic approach, reflecting the ethnographical tradition of the eighteenth century. In addition to the portraits of Qianlong, Alexander painted a series of portraits of Wang Daren (Wang Wenxiong) and Qiao Daren (Qiao Renjie), who were entrusted by the emperor to accompany and take care of the British embassy during their residence in China. In an engraving depicting Wang Daren in Alexander’s Costume of China, the caption describes the military official as “a man of a bold, generous, and amiable character.”21 (Fig. 6.9). In order to capture his identity and personality, Alexander portrays the official in detailed military costume and weapons with a demeanor of determination. He depicts his facial features with characteristics like a rounded face, curved eyes, and smiling mouth that endowed the Mandarin official with a sense of courage and kindness. Qiao Daren is depicted wearing the costume of a civil official holding a scroll related to the embassy in a print in Costume of China (Fig. 6.10). The caption describes him as having “grave deportment, strict integrity, and sound judgment.”22 Alexander portrays him leaning on the rocks with a demeanor of great grace and calmness that reflects his cultivation as a civil official. Alexander notes the difference between military and civil employment, both through the elaborate costumes and the demeanor of the two Mandarin officials. A more ethnographic approach in representing Chinese officials can be observed clearly in another portrait of an anonymous Mandarin official (Fig. 6.11). In this drawing, the figure is sits on a chair with crossed legs while smoking. Alexander carefully delineated his official costume, hat, and ornaments and wrote down their Chinese characters related to their positions indicating the pronunciation and translation. For example, Buzi means the badge, and he drew the military and civil symbols of the pattern on the Buzi, such as the tiger and the bird. He also observed and recorded the name of the official’s pose, Pantui zuoxiang, which means the posture of sitting with crossed legs. In this way, Alexander represented the official as a specimen of a particular type with a specific costume and way of sitting that was foreign to the British. The physiognomy, physical features, manner, and costume of Qianlong and his imperial officials reflect the British interest in depicting human figures from an ethnographic perspective. However, in contrast to the depiction of primitive natives in newly discovered lands, the artists on the embassy represented the Chinese empire as an ancient civilization ruled by wise, sophisticated and capable emperors and officials. This contrast highlights the uniqueness of the China expedition, in which 21 22

Alexander (1805, caption of Portrait of Wang Daren). Ibid. (1805, caption of Portrait of Qiao Daren).

6.2 Qianlong Emperor and the Imperial Court

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Fig. 6.9 Portrait of Wang Daren (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

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Fig. 6.10 Portrait of Qiao Daren (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

the British sought to accumulate data on the Chinese people in order to weigh the comparative strength of the Qing and British empires.

6.3 Chinese People in Various Occupations In addition to the emperor and elite officials, Alexander depicted ordinary workers and businessmen. These images provide a glimpse into everyday life and convey ethnographic data on Chinese people, handicrafts, and local industries. The portraits

6.3 Chinese People in Various Occupations

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Fig. 6.11 William Alexander, Portrait of an anonymous official, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Imagery courtesy of the British Library, London

represent a range of occupations, social identities, and ways of living, and often show the products of the work. The way the embassy members describe and categorize these occupations reflects their interest in Chinese resources and markets as well as their evaluation of Chinese scientific technologies. Fishermen and their families must have aroused particular interest since Alexander depicts them in many of his paintings of Chinese scenery. It is clear that he closely observed their methods of catching fish. In one watercolor sketch, for example, be shows two fishermen carrying their boat on their shoulders toward a lake with fishing birds standing on it (Fig. 6.12). It is an unfinished version with rough and sketchy brushwork that was probably painted on-site, then later developed into an engraving in Staunton’s account. In the text, Alexander describes how fishermen use cormorants

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Fig. 6.12 William Alexander, Portrait of fishermen, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

to catch fish, comparing it to a similar method used by the British.23 He notes that in China thousands of families earn livings by using the birds to catch fish. Another group of laborers the embassy encountered and closely observed was boat trackers. Their work and lifestyle are captured in Alexander’s depiction and Staunton’s written account: The tracking rope is fixed to the upper extremity of the principal mast; and is joined to another that proceeds from the vessel’ prow…to this main rope are fastened cords formed into loops, one of which each tracker throwing over his head, places opposite to his breast.24

Alexander created a more finished watercolor entitled “Trackers in the Rain” depicting soldiers and laborers pulling a vessel in the rain (Fig. 6.13). The trackers are shown moving slowly with ropes tied to their bodies. Their simple and crude clothes and the foul weather capture the harsh conditions of their livelihood. Alexander also observed many Chinese merchants engaged in various kinds of business dealings, depicting local industries as well as the social identity and status of this economic sector. Although businessmen were ranked very low in the Chinese hierarchy of that period, the embassy members were keenly interested in recording local business and lives of businessmen, in keeping with the broader goal of researching the Chinese market for the purpose of trading. 23 24

Alexander (1814, caption of Plate III). Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 46–47).

6.3 Chinese People in Various Occupations

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Fig. 6.13 William Alexander, Trackers in Rainy Weather, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

Alexander’s ethnographic observations extended to the raw materials underlying business activity. For example, he created a print depicting a seller of tobacco pipes who is shown smoking while carrying many tobacco pipes on his back (Fig. 6.14). The caption notes that Chinese men were always smoking tobacco and chewing areca nuts. Men carried tobacco pipes suspended from their belts when not in use, with an appendage containing smoking ingredients and areca nuts. Chinese men usually chewed areca nuts with lime made from shells and wrapped in the leaves of betel pepper.25 In another print, Alexander depicts a figure processing betel leaves (Fig. 6.15). The caption notes that such a business could be found in the stall of any Chinese bazar and market.26 Alexander goes on to provide information on the cultivation of areca trees, a palm species growing in South China, and on smoking herbs, which he believed were a different species from those in America, but had a long history in China.27

25

Alexander (1814, caption of Plate XXXIV). Ibid. 27 Ibid. (1814, caption of Plate XXXII). 26

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Fig. 6.14 A man with pipes for sale (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), hand-colored etchings with aquatint, 1814. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

Alexander studied the craftsmanship and technology underlying business activity, the Chinese approach to printing being a prime example. In his illustration of a book seller on the street, a figure is shown sitting on the book box while smoking (Fig. 6.16). Beside him is a stall displaying various kinds of books. Supporting the image is Staunton’s scientific evaluation of Chinese printing technology. Unlike the movable type of European printing, the Chinese engraved wooden blocks to accommodate the complicated structure of Chinese characters. He argued that, in contrast to European nations which acquired power through military force, the Chinese regarded the study

6.3 Chinese People in Various Occupations

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Fig. 6.15 A man selling betel (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), hand-colored etchings with aquatint, 1814. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

of books of history, morality, and policy as the path to advancement, a focus that led to the invention of printing.28 The caption for the print in The Picturesque Representations notes that, although there were no specific restrictions regarding printing or selling books, antigovernment or immoral publications could result in the punishment of publishers and booksellers. The caption also states that “the Chinese have not made any great progress in literature, and still less in sciences,” claiming that the genres that Chinese most excelled in were books of history, morality, and practical jurisprudence.29 Staunton provides a lengthy introduction to the Chinese publishing industry and an analysis of the Chinese character and its relationship to government and society. He attempts to explain why Chinese books contained no ideas of liberty and democracy. In his view, young people were susceptible to these novel ideas, which would lead them to espouse independence and question the often-abusive power of officials. He further suggests that the art of printing played a decisive role in propagating the moral ideals of the ruler, as it helped him effectively maintain the patriarchal system and ensure state uniformity in politics and ideology.30 Alexander criticizes China’s censorship system, which prevented the advancement of literature and science as well as the concepts of liberty and democracy. In examining the work of booksellers,

28

George Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, pp. 293–394). Alexander (1814, caption of Plate XXIII). 30 Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, pp. 293–301). 29

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Fig. 6.16 A bookseller (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), hand-colored etchings with aquatint, 1814. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

the embassy investigated the Chinese publishing industry and the political censorship behind it. By representing the occupations of various laborers and businessmen, Alexander explored their way of living and provided important information on their work. The focus reflects his effort to conduct an ethnographical study of Chinese society and its people.

6.4 Chinese Women and Family Life The study of gender differences was an essential part of human science in eighteenthcentury Britain. Science previous focus on the study of “man” expanded to include women, which eventually led to the formation of gynecology in the nineteenth century, and contributed to the total knowledge of human science of that period.31 Embassy accounts single out Chinese women as a specific category of study, examining their social, political, and economic status as well as their moral values. Closely associated with women are family life and child rearing, and the embassy also closely examined values and traditions related to Chinese families. Barrow argues in Travels 31

Moscucci (1990).

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Fig. 6.17 Image of the bound feet of Chinese women (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

of China that the status of women in a country reflect its level of civilization. He states: It may, perhaps, be laid down as an invariable maxim, that the condition of the female part of the society, in any nation, will furnish a tolerably just criterion of the degree of civilization to which that nation has arrived. The manners, habits, and prevailing sentiments of women, have great influence on those of the society to which they belong, and generally give a turn to its character. Thus we shall find that those nations, where the moral and intellectual powers of the mind, in the female sex, are held in most estimation, will be governed by such laws as are best calculated to promote the general happiness of the people; and, on the contrary, where the personal qualifications of the sex are the only objects of consideration, as is the case in all the despotic governments of Asiatic nations, tyranny, oppression, and slavery are sure to prevail; and these personal accomplishments, so far from being of sue to the owner, serve only to deprive her of liberty, and the society of her friends; to render her a degraded victim, subservient to the sensual gratifications, the caprice, and the jealousy of tyrant man. Among savage tribes, the labour and drudgery invariably fall heaviest on the weaker sex.32

He considered the treatment of women as an important criterion for evaluating a society’s level of civilization as part of a conjectural history of world nations. The most often mentioned subject related to Chinese women was their bound feet, which Staunton illustrated vividly in his accounts. In a print based on drawings by Alexander, a pair of bare feet are represented as if “the fore part of the foot had been accidentally cut off, leaving the reminder of the usual size, and bandaged like the stump of an amputated limb” as Staunton describes33 (Fig. 6.17). 32 33

Barrow (1805, p. 93). Staunton (1798, Vol. 2, pp. 421–422).

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Alexander depicts both sides of the feet in order to show how they were bound. One drawing shows the great toe in its natural position the others bent under the foot. Beside it, he shows a fully dressed pair of bound feet illustrating part of the woman’s legs. The images are isolated against a blank background in order to accurately and scientifically render physical features. The emphasis on the physicality of women’s feet was typical of the embassy’s study of gender differences and the social status of women in China. Staunton held a negative view of the practice, believing it to be a constraint on the body and mind that curtailed mobility, but he noted that women submitted themselves to foot binding without any dissent.34 Barrow expressed even harsher criticism of the practice, commenting that Chinese women were treated with a greater degree of humiliation and restraint than the ancient Greeks or medieval Europeans. He said that high-ranking women were confined to their homes, while country women were forced into menial labor while their husbands were wandering around gambling.35 He used graphic depictions of the deformation caused by foot binding to emphasize the subservient role of Chinese women and, in doing so, to confirm the embassy’s evaluation of the backwardness and stagnancy of Chinese civilization. Alexander showed a great interest in other customs related to Chinese women, and he created a number of portraits and sketches that depicted their daily lives, mostly of people living in the countryside. On several pieces of small paper, he sketched the heads of women with an emphasis on their hairstyles as well as illustrating full bodies with long robes (Fig. 6.18). The figures are frontal and profile views against a simple or blank background without consideration for spatial proportion. They are posed in various gestures offering different perspectives. Alexander most likely painted these figures on-site when the embassy passed through Chinese villages. Based on these sketches, Alexander created a series of finished portraits of Chinese women with their families in prints. The images were developed from ethnographic drawings combined with his imagination. He classified women into different groups according to their social status, from court ladies and peasant women, and represented them in a contrasting manner. The action of categorization reflects the artist’s study of the social structure of Chinese society, and the social identity of women. To depict higher ranking women, Alexander created a print of a court lady (Fig. 6.19). Dressed in beautifully-embroidered costume, the woman conveys great elegance through her graceful demeanor and posture. The caption notes that, in spite of the habit of bound feet, high-ranking women usually received a fine education, and engaged themselves in cultivating plants and attending to birds in their homes. The lady in the print holds a bird in one hand and a tobacco pipe in the other. As Barrow observed, most Chinese people smoked, including women and children. Behind her, he shows a complex of palace buildings and towers that indicate the city where the court ladies resided. In the account, Staunton notes the difference between Han Chinese women and Manchu women. While the former maintained the habit of binding their feet, the latter were allowed to have natural feet that enabled them to 34 35

Ibid. (p. 423). Barrow (1805, p. 95).

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Fig. 6.18 William Alexander, Portraits of Chinese women, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

ride horses in keeping with their traditions and racial identity.36 Compared with the negative evaluation of Staunton, Alexander’s image presents a more positive view of the social status of Chinese women. Since upper class women were often confined to their homes, it was difficult for Alexander to gain the opportunity to see them. Therefore, he might have created the image based on secondary sources. In contrast to the court lady, Alexander also created a watercolor and print of a boat girl of lower social ranking (Fig. 6.20). Standing on the boat, the girl is shown dressed in a costume that differs very little from that of a man. Described as an efficient navigator, she presents a sharp contrast to the court lady with natural bare feet that enabled her to work as hard and efficiently as men. Alexander most likely created the watercolor on-site since he would have encountered such women frequently on the journey. This depiction is realistic and accurate, reflecting the goal of ethnographical observation. However, Barrow saw the low-rank Chinese female laborers from a different perspective. In Travels in China he cites an illustration by Nieuhof, the painter on the earlier Dutch embassy, in which a woman is seen plowing in the same yoke as an ass, bearing out his assertion that “among savage tribes, the labor and drudgery 36

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 123).

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Fig. 6.19 A Court lady (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

invariably fall heaviest on the weaker sex.”37 In his account, Barrow harshly criticizes the way Chinese woman are treated and equates this aspect of society with other “savages,” implying that China is a backward culture. Compared with the more neutral representation of Chinese women by Alexander, Barrow’s biased evaluation indicates his personal prejudice. Alexander also made images of women and children that reflect family life and traditions. In one watercolor sketch, the artist depicts groups of village women attending to their children. Alexander likely created this image based on direct observation of women and their children who approached the embassy on its travels 37

Barrow (1805, p. 93).

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Fig. 6.20 A fisher girl (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

(Fig. 6.21). The women are of different ages, all with bound feet. There are no connections among the individual figures, indicating that these were studies intended to record the manner of Chinese women attending their children. These images were probably begun on-site, but were carefully filled in and detailed later. For the final prints of both elite or peasant subjects, family scenes were carefully composed with more details, and the image was idealized to reflect moral values. Chinese women are always shown attending to their children, especially boys, with strong affection. In the interior view of an elite family, a lady is depicted holding the boy’s hand while he is playing with a toy (Fig. 6.22). The Chinese characters

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Fig. 6.21 William Alexander, Portraits of village women, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

on the wall indicate the good education that the family possessed and the literate environment in which the boy grew up. A print by Alexander depicting a husband, wife and their three children provides a good picture of family life in China (Fig. 6.23). He shows the method peasant wives used to carry children, attaching a bag containing the baby to her body so she could engage in hard labor. The father’s affection for the baby girl is apparent in the way he reaches out to hold her. The female children are also depicted with bound feet, indicating that they were forced to suffer this pain from childhood. The embassy’s verbal descriptions present a sharp contrast to Alexander’s pictures. For example, in Travels in China Barrow notes that male children were often entirely separated from their sisters and that family members maintained cold and ceremonial relations with each other. He states that “there is no common focus to attract and concentrate the love and respect of children for their parents.”38 For the relationship between parents and their children, Staunton and Barrow provided accounts of abandoned or even killed infants. Parents had the right to decide the fate of their children upon their birth, and female infants were far more likely than males to be abandoned 38

Barrow (1805, p. 96).

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Fig. 6.22 Woman and child (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

and left to die. In China, filial duty turned out to be more like a law than a moral value, and children were forced to submit entirely to the wills of their parents.39 The embassy’s written accounts on this subject reveal a bias toward presenting a negative view of China to British people. A sense of moral superiority underlies the view of a backward and stagnant society that came to be the prevailing British attitude towards China in the late 18th and early nineteenth century. However, artists like Alexander, offered a more neutral viewpoint in depicting Chinese women based on an attempt to portray subjects objectively from an ethnographical point of view. The imagery at least provided a different perspective on China for the British viewers.

6.5 Representing Chinese Religion and Ritual Central to the science of man is a field of study devoted to describing, classifying and analyzing various religious beliefs and practices. Macartney, Staunton and Barrow all sought to understand and document Chinese religion during their travels. Their accounts provide an overview of the major religions in China, the priesthood, spirits and idols, rituals, and interconnections with other religions around the world. In his

39

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 158–160), Barrow (1805, p. 116).

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Fig. 6.23 A Chinese family (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

journal, Macartney expresses his amazement that different religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam could co-exist in peace as long as they did not threaten the power of the rulers.40 Meanwhile, Barrow tried to discover the 40

For Chinese translation of An Embassy to China: Lord Macartnery’s journal, see Macartney (2013, pp. 16–27).

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origins of Chinese culture and beliefs, and how ideas were shared among Indian, Egyptian, Greek, and Chinese religions. He also recounted the history of different religious sects and the tolerant response they received from the emperor.41 Alexander captures aspects of Chinese religion in some of his drawings and watercolors. Although his series of images lacked systematic approach, they provide invaluable glimpses of religious practice based on empirical observation. To find a common equivalence of deities among different religions was a great concern for the embassy. In the sketches, paintings, and prints, Alexander sought to introduce British viewers to religious icons that seemed exotic on the surface, but were somewhat demystified by the scientific approach of the artist and the analysis found in the verbal accounts. At the same time, these images were charged with a sense of strangeness and wonder, which the artist associated with paganism. Although the embassy tried to convey the knowledge objectively, they revealed their prejudices and biases resulting from their own standards and criteria. At Dagu, they entered a temple of the sea king, and observed the cult idol of Haiwang who was depicted in Alexander’s print as a red-bearded God reposing on waves while holding a compass in his hand (Fig. 6.24). Barrow identified Haiwang as the same personage as the Varuna of the Hindus and Poseidon of the Greeks.42 The embassy also noted the worship of Leishen, the God of Thunder. Barrow associated him with Vishnu of the Hindus, who rode on an eagle, and Zeus of the Greeks. He believed that the Egyptian god Osiris came still nearer to the Chinese God of Thunder because the Chinese and Egyptians united the bird and divinity under one symbol. The reason for using the symbol of the eagle, Barrow assumed, is that the Chinese discovered that eagles flew above the clouds in a thunderstorm.43 In his watercolor, Alexander depicts the idol with the beak and talons of an eagle. In creating the image, Alexander may have referred to sculptures in a Buddhist temple or textual sources. This deity was often represented surrounded by kettle drums, so in the final print he revised the image to include a ring of drums around the god (Fig. 6.25). Another Chinese deity whom Staunton and Barrow recorded in text and Alexander depicted in a watercolor and a detailed print is the Shengmu or Holy Mother (Fig. 6.26). Barrow proposed that the female deity is the counterpart of the Indian Ganga or goddess of the river, Isis of the Egyptians, and Demeter of the Greeks. The early missionaries were also stuck by similarities between the Holy Mother and the Virgin Mary, which became even more compelling when they heard the story of how the Holy Mother gave birth to the great man.44 In discussing the goddess, Barrow examines religious symbolism from several perspectives, including his expertise as a botanist. For example, he notes that the lotus plant found in Chinese Buddhism also appears in the statue of Osiris in Rome’s Barberini palace and in Egyptian religious imagery. All 41

Barrow (1805, pp. 281–329). Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 10). 43 Barrow (1805, p. 317). 44 Ibid. (p. 319). 42

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Fig. 6.24 Image of God of Haiwang (reproduced from The Authentic Account), based on drawing by William Alexander, 1797, print. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

picture the same species of water lily known to botanists as Nelumbium. This kind of precision in considering symbolism is offset by confusion about the underlying belief systems, for example between the Bodhisattva of Buddhism and the Holy Mother of Taoism. Barrow notes that, in China, the Holy Mother was often represented sitting on a lotus leaf, and sometimes holds the seed-vessel of the Nelumbium in her hand.45 This representation should be that of the Bodhisattva of Buddhism rather than the female deity of Taoism. By contrast, Alexander’s depiction of the Holy Mother provides more accurate information about this cult than was previously available by showing the goddess dressed in Chinese traditional costume and elaborate head dress without the symbol of the Nelumbium. In investigating Chinese religious icons, the British embassy made a conscious effort to find similarities among ancient religions as part of their endeavor to create a universal history, which often resulted in forced connections. The priesthood was another focus of the embassy’s study of religion, examining the practice, manner, and costume of various types of priests. Alexander researched, 45

Ibid. (pp. 320–321).

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177

Fig. 6.25 Image of Thunder God (reproduced from The Authentic Account), based on drawing by William Alexander, 1797, print. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

catalogued, and recorded several priests in watercolors, including a Confucian priest and Buddhist monks. In a watercolor, the head of a Confucian priest is shown bearing the traditional hat of a Chinese literati (Fig. 6.27). Barrow noted that there no statues representing Confucianism. Instead, in every city is a public building where college exams were held for the degrees of office.46 Alexander did not provide any more images that described the Confucius cult or relevant ritual, but the image of the literati-like priest indicate its association with the educated class and bureaucratic system in China. For the image of the Lama monks, Alexander depicts an adherent dressed in yellow robes with the Potala in the background (Fig. 6.28). In the caption he describes the shaved heads and royal yellow robes identified with Lama Buddhism, the sect to which the Manchu emperor was attached.47 The figure is shown holding a scripture in one hand, and a hat made of bamboo and straw in the other, while gazing at the Potala temple in the distance. The Potala temple, as discussed earlier, contains 46 47

Barrow (1805, p. 309). Alexander (1805, caption of Portrait of Lama).

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Fig. 6.26 William Alexander, Image of Holy Mother, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

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Fig. 6.27 William Alexander, Portrait of a Confucian priest, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

the great fo or Buddha that Lama monks worship. In contrast to Indian monks who imposed “painful, laborious, and disgusting punishments” on themselves and other followers, Chinese monks were esteemed individuals with fair-minded morals.48 They had been the victims of the mortifications imposed by European missionaries who detested Buddhism. Alexander presents a truer picture of Chinese Buddhism than Jesuit accounts, which were solely focused on spreading Christianity. Alexander also created sketches and verbal descriptions of the rituals and ceremonies practiced by these priests. His accounts reflect a negative tone that categorizes Chinese religions as a form of “paganism” which “generates gross superstition and credulity among unenlightened part of the people.”49 In a print, Alexander represents a sacred building displaying an image of Buddha that stands by a road with a traveler reposing beside it (Fig. 6.29). He notes that on special days, people offered sacrifices to the Buddhist idol in the edifice accompanied by firecrackers and incense. In another print, Alexander depicts a scene of fortune-telling (Fig. 6.30). The figure on the right is shaking a bamboo container that drops sticks used to predict 48 49

Alexander (1814, caption of A bonze). Alexander (1805, caption of A small idol temple).

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Fig. 6.28 A Buddhist (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

the outcome of the events being prayed for. According to accounts from Barrow and Staunton, if the event turned out as desired, supplicants were expected to burn tin papers or deposit copper money on the alter in gratitude for the favor received. This ritual observance is takes place in front of a sacred urn. An official kneels down preparing to kowtow for an offer he received from the deity. In the middle, a monk burns incense in the urn, with two deities standing in back.

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Fig. 6.29 Buddhist Temple and Traveler (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library

As part of the human sciences, religion was an important area of investigation and accounts and images of religious practices in different cultures helped shape Western perceptions. For example, David Hume in his Natural History of Religion of 1757 examined the formation of religious beliefs among indigenous people, and Montesquieu related religion to a group’s social, political, and cultural milieu. For the embassy, religion became prism through which the British studied Chinese society and culture. The embassy showed great interest in researching Chinese religion and capturing images as part of its overall effort to accumulate the knowledge of China. In these images, Alexander sought to capture the characteristics and costume of each deity, which, accompanied by written accounts, conveyed important information on Chinese religions for the British audience. Although the embassy sometimes revealed prejudices and negative attitudes by equating Chinese religion with superstition, the images remain an invaluable historical document.

6.6 Chinese Punishment Among Alexander’s works is a series of images of Chinese punishment that provided British audiences with a view into the Chinese legal system and practices. Montesquieu described Chinese law in relation to the society’s goals and argued:

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Fig. 6.30 A sacrifice at temple (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London (Laws) bear to the nature and principle of government, to climate, to soil quality and terrain, to territorial extent, to religion, to the inclinations of the inhabitants and their extent of wealth, to population levels, to modes of subsistence and commerce, and to the manners and customs of the people.50

Embassy members expressed mixed feelings about the legal system and their more positive comments were sometimes undermined by the images of Chinese punishment. Some members praised Chinese laws as a complete and detailed system, with more mild and efficacious dispensation of justice than any other nation. For example, Barrow commented that the Code of China collected in London could compete with Blackstone in its detailed description of laws, its explanations, and case citations. He also discovered that the Chinese government was more concerned with people’s lives than any other nation.51 Alexander’s images depicting Chinese law and punishments tend deemphasize individual suffering and focus attention on providing remarkably detailed and specific descriptions of various devices and practices. Both Staunton and Barrow show subjects being beaten with bamboo sticks and wearing a tcha or cangue designed to abuse and humiliate criminals. Bribes were common during lawsuits revealing the corruption existing in the Chinese legal system.52 As recorded by Barrow, the 50

Cited in Carrithers (1995, p. 256). Barrow (1805, pp. 244–245). 52 Staunton (1798, Vol. 5, pp. 495–496). 51

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Fig. 6.31 William Alexander, Scene of the offender beaten by bamboo, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

ban-zi or the punishment of the bamboo might be one of the most ancient institutions of China. He investigated the political ideology and system behind using this kind of punishment and how it reflected the character of the Chinese people. For example, he believed that the Chinese belief in paternal authority gave the government authority over every individual except for the emperor. Officials and family heads had the power to inflict the punishment of the bamboo on their inferiors in the name of fatherly correction. In this way, the mind of Chinese people was subdued and became servile to avoid the disgrace of being punished by ban-zi.53 A watercolor by Alexander illustrates this punishment (Fig. 6.31). A person lies prone on the ground being beaten with bamboo staves. A Mandarin official oversees the ban-zi, while his subordinate holds the bamboo staff high ready to brutally beat the victim another time. The victim displays no emotional response, suggesting that the artist’s focus is on the means rather than the recipient of the punishment. Surrounding the ban-zi is a crowd of spectators, including peasants, civilians, and children, some covering their faces with their hands. The watercolor was later developed into a print in which the artist focuses in on the punishment and largely eliminates the surrounding village setting (Fig. 6.32). The event is pictured on a plain surface with a small circle of spectators surrounding the offender. In the watercolor, the man being beaten is small and partially hidden, so we barely notice his suffering. The drawing shows normal daily life and surrounding

53

Barrow (1805, pp. 255–257).

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landscape in a very undramatic fashion. Nothing suggests Alexander was criticizing this practice, although the print clearly shows its brutality. A more severe punishment is shown in another print by Alexander in which a man has been tied to a wooden pole. His ear has been pierced with an iron arrow, with blood dripping down (Fig. 6.33). A soldier is shown holding a board on which his crime is written while an official looks on. The image reveals the harsh punishments

Fig. 6.32 Punishment of the Bastinado (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

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Fig. 6.33 Punishment (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

meted out by some Chinese laws in way that is clearly at odds with what Barrow had describes as mild and efficacious system. In representing Chinese punishment, the embassy members recorded and depicted that the criminals were forced to wear the tcha or cangue for punishment. The cangue is a heavy wooden fixture with a hole through the center or two pieces of wood hollowed in the middle which enclose the neck of the criminal, sometimes including two other holes for their hands.54 In a watercolor sketch which appears to have been painted on-site, Alexander depicts a Chinese criminal wearing the cangue (Fig. 6.34). Again, the emphasis is on the method of punishment rather than the suffering it causes. The criminal’s neutral expression indicates that the figure is more of a type than an individual. His small body is on the ground and learning against a tree with a huge cangue holding him, down. In another watercolor and a print that was developed from it, a criminal is shown wearing the wooden cangue which also holds both of his hands (Fig. 6.35). He is pulled with a chain held by a prison officer, probably to a gate of the city. The caption states that criminals were often led to the city gate or other highly public places and exposed to the derision of the populace.55 The cangue is depicted as a 54 55

Staunton (1798, Vol. 5, p. 492). Alexander (1805, caption of Punishment of the Cangue).

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Fig. 6.34 William Alexander, Image of an offender wearing a cangue, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

massive and heavy fixture, which in fact was from sixty to two hundred pounds in weight depending on the severity of the crime. This brutal method of the punishment is presented in an almost scientific manner. In the print of Staunton’s account, Alexander composed an image in which a criminal with the cangue rests under the tree in a natural landscape setting (Fig. 6.36). The scene conveys the punishment dramatically, showing the victim leaning against the tree with his eyes closed as if in relief from the weight of the cangue. A Mandarin and prison official appear oblivious to his suffering and are engaged in a leisurely

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Fig. 6.35 Punishment of the Cangue (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

conversation, with one of them even resting his arm on the cangue. A mother is trying to lead her son away while the curious boy looks around at the criminal. This work was composed in the Picturesque style, conveying a relaxed atmosphere, with a range of different figures chatting and gazing. In the background are pavilions and pagodas set in a landscape of distant mountains and a beautiful lake on which a boat is sailing by, conveying a sense of rural leisure. The bucolic scene, painted to appeal to the British taste, is incongruent with the punishment taking place in the foreground. In terms of style, Alexander uses a Picturesque approach to capture Chinese punishments in an effort to cater to British audience’s taste for exoticism. In terms of subject matter, however, his goal is to reveal key aspects of the Chinese legal system and its role in Chinese society. The commentary on this topic suggests that although the punishments may seem harsh to the westerners, these practices were widely accepted among Chinese people and were a reflection of the hierarchical nature of Chinese society where the punishment of inferiors was condoned in the name of fatherly correction. Cruel punishments such as beatings and the use of cangues were so commonplace that spectators in the embassy’s images appear completely unmoved. The embassy’s similar response parallels Chinese attitudes, as is evident in comments from Lord Kames: “The laws of a country is in perfection when it corresponds to the manners of the people, their circumstances, their government.”56

56

Carrithers (1995, p. 256).

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Fig. 6.36 Punishment of the Cangue (reproduced from The Authentic Account), based on the drawing from William Alexander, 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Like other European expeditions, the Macartney Embassy emphasized direct observation and factual-empirical description, which they then used to draw conclusions reflecting cultural bias. Embassy members closely observed the habits, customs, and lifestyles of Chinese people in order to evaluate their morality and level of civilization. They examined the impact of the natural environment, political and economic systems, the arts, family structure, gender assumptions, and social relations within and among communities. The embassy’s scientists and naturalists acted as conjectural historians in examining various aspects of the Chinese people and their society, which the artists visualized in hundreds of images. John Barrow, who claimed to be a practitioner of conjectural history, collected data on all people in the known world and ranked them according to their civilization level.57 As conjectural history required, the embassy’s observations embraced all aspects of social living, including the division of labor, people’s livelihoods, their arts and sciences, the position of women in the society, the politics of Manchu rulership and their relations with

57

Marshall (1993).

References

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Han Chinese, and commercial activities. Finally, rather than being regarded as primitive or savage, Chinese people were seen and represented by British intellectuals as a foreign group that served “both as a source of knowledge and of self-criticism” during the Enlightenment.58 The Macartney Embassy carried out a project of describing, analyzing, classifying, and evaluating Chinese people and society that corresponded to the formation and development of human science. The artistic convention of ethnography provided them with a model for depicting the Chinese people in an objective and scientific manner, while the scientific approaches of physiognomy, costume studies, and manners enabled them to draw conclusions from the physical features of individuals. The embassy took a broad perspective, studying the Manchu rulership and imperial court, ordinary people, women and children as well as religion and the legal system. In both text and image, the embassy members recorded and researched all aspects of Chinese people based on empirical observation and secondary sources. As part of this endeavor, the artists conveyed their distinctive viewpoints, sometimes objective and sometimes idealizing their subjects, especially in finished prints and paintings. Of special note are contradictions between the artworks and verbal descriptions, reflecting the embassy’s often ambivalent attitudes towards the complexities of Chinese culture. In examining China’s political and economic systems, the embassy paid close attention to the forces in shaping their moral values and cultural identity, and an inherent sense of British superiority undermines their objectivity. At heart, the embassy viewed the Chinese empire as an old civilization in decline, undercutting the more idealized views of China from earlier accounts by the Jesuits. This bias was based on the British practice of ranking all civilizations according to the method of conjectural history that placed the British Empire above other civilizations. Thus, the human science of the eighteenth century cannot be simply understood as a neutral stance. It must be interpreted as a part of an imperial project that embodies a sense of British superiority and its ambition of world-wide expansion.

References Alexander, William. 1805. Costume of China: Illustrated in forty-eight colored engravings. London: William Miller. Alexander, William. 1814. Picturesque representations of the dress and manners of the Chinese. London: John Murray. Alexander, William’s Journal, September 29, 1793, cited in Slobada, Stacey. 2008. William Alexander and the visual language of Chinoiserie. The British Art Journal 9(2). Barrow, John. 1805. Travels in China. Philadelphia: W. F. M’Laughlin. Carrithers, David. 1995. The enlightenment of science of society. In Inventing human science: Eighteenth-century domains, ed. Christopher Fox, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler. Berkeley: University of California Press.

58

Moravia (1980, p. 261).

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Crawford, John. 1977. Physiognomy in classical and American portrait busts. American Art Journal 9 (1): 49–60. Fox, Christopher. 1995. How to prepare a noble savage: The spectacle of human science. In Inventing human science: Eighteenth-century domains, ed. Christopher Fox, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler. Berkeley: University of California Press. Graham, John. 1961. Lavater’s physiognomy in England. Journal of the History of Ideas 22 (4): 561–572. Hopfl, H.M. 1978. From savage to scotsman: Conjectural history in the Scottish Enlightenment. Journal of British Studies 17 (2): 19–40. Hume, David. 1739. A treatise of human nature, cited in Fox, Christopher’s “How to prepare a noble savage: The spectacle of human science.” In Inventing human science: Eighteenthcentury domains, ed. Christopher Fox, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler. Berkeley: University of California Press. Joppien, Rugiger, and Bernard Smith. 1985. The art of Captain Cook’s voyages. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Macartney, George. 2013. An embassy to China, trans. Gaoji He. Beijing: The Commercial Press. Marshall, P.J. 1993. Britain and China in the late eighteenth century. In Ritual and diplomacy: The Macartney mission to China, 1792–1794, ed. Robert A. Bickers. London: Wesweep Press. Moravia, Sergio. 1980. The enlightenment and the sciences of man. History of Science 18: 247–268. Moscucci, Ornella. 1990. The science of woman: Gynaecology and gender in England, 1800–1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sloboda, Stacey Loughrey. 2014. Chinoiserie: Commerce and Critical Ornament in EighteenthCentury Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Staunton, George. 1798. An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. London: W. Bulmer and Co. for G. Nicol. Vermeulen, Han F. 1995. Origins and institutionalization of ethnography and ethnology in Europe and the USA, 1771–1845. In Fieldwork and footnotes: Studies in the history of European anthropology, ed. Han F. Vermeulen and Arturo Alverez Roldan, 39–59. London and New York: Routledge. Wolker, Robert. 1995. Anthropology and conjectural history in the Enlightenment. In Inventing human science: Eighteenth century domains, ed. Christopher Fox, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chapter 7

Visualizing and Evaluating Chinese Science and Technology

During their journey, the Macartney embassy members were engaged in recording various forms of Chinese science and technology in both verbal texts and visual images, and collecting information on what British products might be welcomed in the Chinese market. They also compared Chinese science and technology to British one in order to weigh the relative strength and power of the two nations. Their conclusions became key factor in shaping British perception towards China in the late 18th and early nineteenth century. The embassy produced numerous images and descriptions of Chinese science and technology, including of communication and transportation systems on the sea and land, military science, and agriculture. The illustrations were composed using a scientific approach that detailed the structure, mechanisms, and function of the equipment and instruments. Embassy members also collaborated on capturing the scientific aspects of Chinese arts and crafts, including painting, gardening, architecture, and music and opera, in many cases expressing opinions reflecting a negative cultural bias.

7.1 Scientific Background of the Embassy Science played an important and active role in advancing 18th-century British culture, which generated a surge of interest in foreign technologies. Although Europe surpassed Asia in mechanical technology such as clocks, screws, levers, and pulleys, explorers were keen on learning the secrets of silk production, textile weaving, and porcelain making from China.1 As the first British diplomatic mission, the Macartney Embassy made investigating Chinese science and technology a top priority. As the advisor to the embassy, Joseph Banks issued orders to research Chinese mechanical arts as he believed that “the useful as well as the ornamental branches of science are likely to derive infinite advantage.” The members were confident that Western 1

Benjamin Elman, online source, see reference.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_7

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science would attract and impress the Manchu imperial court, and in return, they hoped to learn about Chinese technology so Britain could produce goods like silks and porcelain on their own. A sense of European superiority was already firmly in place by the eighteenth century. Bruno Latour’s concept of “centers of calculation,” placed cities like London at the center of scientific knowledge, which included both European advancements and information gleaned from distant lands. Joseph Banks’ project, including the Macartney embassy, was an essential part of this quest for global synthesis. The hierarchy assumed by the Europeans was based on the center/periphery pattern in Latour’s theory, which diminished the importance of China’s equally valid advancements in science and technology. However, the embassy clearly found many elements worthy of investigation and evaluation. In creating illustrations and diagrams, the members made every effort to use a scientifically-neutral approach devoid of any judgments. The British artists and engravers then embellished the images to generate a sense of novelty and wonder to satisfy the curiosity of the British public while also conveying knowledge of Chinese science. The textual descriptions were less objective, evaluating Chinese science and technology according to British criteria. The ambivalent attitudes they expressed helped shape British perceptions of China during this period.

7.2 Chinese Shipping Alexander conducted a systematic study of the Chinese vessels most commonly used for traveling, shipping and transporting vehicles. He categorized the craft into several major types according to their function, including the traveling barge, trading ship, seagoing vessel, fishing boat, and warship. His watercolors and prints of ships and boats scientifically recorded their structure, function, construction materials, mechanisms, and decoration. He also carefully delineated every detail of the building of ships and the activities of the laborers. Subjects range from the luxurious traveling boats of high officials and large war and cargo vessels to humble fishing boats. The images gave general British audiences the opportunity to appreciate exotic craft while conveying important information about Chinese marine power and defense capability to naval experts. One of the embassy’s typical scientific diagrams represents the structure and mechanism of a particular type of boat (Fig. 7.1). In this image, four planar graphs show the bottom, top, profile, and section views of the boat. Two additional images show the boat in three dimensions in diagonal and profile perspectives. This scientific diagram conveyed detailed information on Chinese barges and served as the basis for the artists to create images of various Chinese boats in more finished picturesque compositions. In another drawing, Alexander shows a traveling boat in pen and ink, most likely completing an initial pencil sketch on-site. His meticulous attention to detail captures the structural features of every part of the boat and the texture of its materials (Fig. 7.2).

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Fig. 7.1 Plan, section and views of a passage boat of the lower part of the river Quang-sin, and of the Kang-kiang, ink drawing, 1794. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Later, the pen and ink drawing was developed into a print in which the carefully observed boat is identified as belonging to Wang Daren (Fig. 7.3). The print is in vibrant colors that add a sense of luxury and nobility. As the caption describes, the covered central cabin is for the proprietor, who is avoiding the spectators’ gaze, and the fore part and stern are for boatmen who are depicted seated on the boat smoking.2 2

Alexander (1805, caption of a traveling boat).

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Fig. 7.2 William Alexander, Image of a traveling boat, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

The print also captures the rugged and irregular material used for the cover, which was made of bamboo matting. In both images, the boat is positioned in the center of the picture in a three-quarter view against a blank background to create the effect of a model-type specimen. In addition to traveling boats, Alexander created several watercolors of largescale seagoing trading ships, built for traveling to distant lands. His sketches provide a detailed view of its structure and shape, again in three-quarter view (Fig. 7.4). He notes that the stern angles into the water in order to protect the rudder from being

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Fig. 7.3 Image of a traveling barge (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

destroyed by heavy seas.3 In the embassy’s estimation, this design was likely to put the ship in danger in especially strong winds. Alexander also painted the hold for cargo which was divided into several waterproof partitions to prevent leakage and

3

Ibid. (1805, caption of a trading ship).

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Fig. 7.4 William Alexander, Image of a trading ship, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

protect the ship from foundering. The body of the ship is painted with light black and light red colors that emphasize the simple and crude condition of the ship. The delineation is quite meticulous in representing the composition of the ship. In a print developed from this watercolor, Alexander applies more lively and brilliant colors (Fig. 7.5). In addition to structure, Alexander also paid attention to materials such as the bamboo and nankeen used to make matting, which he rendered in his paintings with coarse surfaces. These and other details like flying banners provided exotic images to attract British viewers. At the same time, the written accounts tended to look down on Chinese shipbuilding and noted that although European vessels often visited Canton, Chinese were averse to innovation and refused to learn from the West.4 They also demeaned Chinese watermen for their superstitions such as painting eyes on front of ships to resemble fish in the belief that it avoided danger.5 The splendid 4 5

Ibid. Ibid.

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Fig. 7.5 Image of a trading ship (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

appearance of the ships forms a strong contrast with the negative textual descriptions and evaluations. Alexander painted a number of watercolors depicting warships that he observed along the Chinese coastline. In one watercolor, he shows several warships gathered on the sea under full sail (Fig. 7.6). The meticulous depiction details the ship’s structure

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Fig. 7.6 William Alexander, Image of ships of war, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

and decoration. The ships are manned by lines of solemn and disciplined soldiers whose shields are hung outside the hull to identify the vessel. The watercolor may have served as a prototype for a print. The embassy’s evaluation of the technology of Chinese warships was typically negative. The caption of the print developed from these watercolors notes that these ships were “clumsy,” and the navigational knowledge of seamen limited, even though they claimed to have been using compasses for a long time.6 The text provided information on the military personnel stationed on the ships and commented that the gun ports were fake since only a few ships of the Chinese navy were supplied with artillery.7 In an effort to capture the livelihoods of ordinary people, Alexander created several images of small fishing boats. In one sketch, Alexander depicts a fisherman seated in a simple boat, working the tiller with one hand and the sail with the other, while also pushing an oar with his foot (Fig. 7.7). Another figure rests under a thatched shelter in the bow. The sketch was drawn with pen and ink, without color, then developed into a print that was included in Staunton’s account (Fig. 7.8). The print shows the waterman with a hat sailing his boat on the river with a vivid landscape of a distant village in the background. In another finished print, Alexander shows a newer fishing method that was proving more effective than the use of birds (Fig. 7.9). The fishermen ply their 6 7

Ibid. (1805, caption of a ship of war). Ibid.

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Fig. 7.7 William Alexander, Image of a fisherman with his boat, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

trade in a crude wooden boat with a bamboo net dragged behind it. The filled net is then lifted with a lever on which the fishermen stands using his weight as a counterbalance, with his companion pulling the lever down from below. Although this equipment was simple, it proved very effective in catching fish. In contrast to luxurious traveling boats and massive and powerful ships of trade and war, humble boats provided a glimpse of the traditional skills of watercraft and fishing that reflected both simple lifestyles and a high level of skill and ingenuity. The appealingly picturesque images are contradicted by generally negative evaluations in the text passages, belittling both the ships and the seamen’s skills. Barrow presents a sharp contrast between Chinese shipbuilding techniques and what he sees as clearly superior British methods. For example, he comments that the structure and shape of Chinese vessels “lose all this advantage over ships of Europe by their drifting to leeward, in consequence of the round and clumsy shape of the bottom, and their want of keel,” and adds that the Chinese “are equally unskilled in naval architecture, as in the art of navigation.”8 Such evaluations negated the long-held impression that 8

Barrow (1805, p. 26).

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Fig. 7.8 A Chinese waterman, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

China was a great sea power, and exposed the technological weaknesses of Chinese marine sciences.

7.3 Land Transportation The embassy also closely studied inland communication and transportation systems along with related technologies and labor practices. Chinese porters and carriages were a frequent subject of Alexander’s paintings. In a print, a porter pushes a singlewheeled carriage with a sail using favorable winds to increase its speed (Fig. 7.10). When the wind was adverse, a second laborer was employed to pull the carriage with ropes. The caption praises the “ingeniousness” of harnessing the wind to help power a carriage.9 Methods for carrying goods by laborers also reflect Chinese understanding of mechanical technology. An engraving in Staunton’s account shows a group 9

Alexander (1805, caption of a Chinese porter).

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Fig. 7.9 Image of a fishing boat (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

Fig. 7.10 Portrait of a Chinese porter (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

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Fig. 7.11 Chinese porters (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

of laborers carrying a heavy load with a diagram of the framework used below (Fig. 7.11). The mechanism consisted of two long bamboo poles with shorter poles fixed across the ends, to which extensions were added on each side. The eight short extensions rested on the shoulders of eight men. Staunton studied this method, and concluded that in this way “the strength of more men may be applied in a geometrical proportion, each sustaining an equal degree of pressure in raising and carrying very considerable weights.”10 Accounts from Staunton and Barrow praise Chinese laborers for being able to handle the embassy’s heavy gifts in such an efficient way. Mandarin officials often traveled in sedan chairs carried by laborers as seen in two watercolors by Alexander and an engraving that was developed from a print. According to Staunton, “the poles of the chair were suspended at the extremities by cords; in the bend of which short bamboos were passed. The ends of each short bamboo rested upon the shoulders of the chairmen, of whom two supported and divided the weight before the chair, and two behind.”11 In a watercolor, Alexander 10 11

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 112). Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 73–74).

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Fig. 7.12 William Alexander, Image of a sedan chair, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

shows four men carrying a sedan chair (Fig. 7.12). The simplified brushwork indicates that the work might have been created on-site. The drawing was later developed into a print in which both the figures and sedan chair were rendered in greater detail (Fig. 7.13). This sedan belonged to a high official since it was decorated with rich ornaments and the laborers were dressed in the uniform of official porters. The embassy offered British horse-drawn carriages as gifts to the Qianlong emperor, and the Chinese built carriages of their own. In a simplified, unfinished watercolor sketch of a Chinese carriage by Alexander, the driver is shown sitting on the shaft (Fig. 7.14). In contrast to the British carriage, the Chinese one did not have springs or seats inside, so passengers sat on cushions. The artist developed the sketch into a more detailed finished print showing two female passengers visible through a square hole on the cab (Fig. 7.15). Barrow recorded an event in which the British carriages produced by Hatchett initially caused some confusion. After the Chinese inspected the carriages, they concluded that the splendid looking and elevated position belonged to emperor, and the inside was for court ladies. However, an imperial eunuch was apparently unhappy when he learned that the coachman was sitting higher than the emperor with his back towards him.12 Although the British carriage design proved to be unacceptable to the imperial court, the embassy was able to use it when they traveled from Peking to the Great Wall and it won praise from Chinese officials who were invited to try it.13 Ignorance of Chinese customs and tradition led to the failure of many British gifts to the imperial court. Alexander also created a watercolor representing the Chinese postal system (Fig. 7.16). A postman is shown carrying a letter, probably from the emperor since it is decorated with a yellow silk. He is riding a handsome horse that was renewed at every stage to ensure rapid delivery. 12 13

Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, pp. 164–165). Ibid. (1798, Vol. 3, p. 168).

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Fig. 7.13 William Alexander, Image of a sedan chair, 1793, watercolor. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

Fig. 7.14 William Alexander, Image of a carriage, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

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Fig. 7.15 A carriage (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

When the watercolor was developed into the print, Plate 32 in Staunton’s account, the artist added two horsemen in the background who were probably guards, providing context for the image of the postman (Fig. 7.17). Aeneas Anderson, the valet to the embassy, noted that couriers carried a box bound with straps that contained letters and packets. The box was decorated with small bells to signal the approach of the post. Anderson recognized the effectiveness of the Chinese postal system, which in his estimation could compete with the English mail.14 In depicting the Chinese communication and transportation systems on land, Alexander applied a scientific approach to analyzing their structures, mechanisms, and functions. The images reveal detailed empirical observation, and the published prints were modified to make them more picturesque and dramatic. The stylistic embellishments gave the artist a distinct voice in conveying scientific knowledge of China in a way that appealed to the artistic sensibilities of the British audience. The written texts tended to bring in a more ambivalent tone as Chinese innovations were evaluated according to the British standards.

14

Anderson’s journal cited in Bishop (1997, pp. 75–76).

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Fig. 7.16 William Alexander, Portrait of a postman, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library

7.4 Scientific Apparatuses: Chinese Mathematics, Metallurgy, and Navigation The Macartney embassy examined and recorded several scientific apparatuses such as the suan-pan (abacus), bellows, and compass that were associated with Chinese mathematics, metallurgy, and navigation. Members prepared detailed images of these objects for scientific purposes, showing them magnified and isolated against a blank background with accompanying descriptions of how and where the apparatuses were

7.4 Scientific Apparatuses: Chinese Mathematics, Metallurgy, and Navigation

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Fig. 7.17 A Mandarin wearing a letter from the Emperor of China, based on the drawing by William Alexander (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

used. In creating finished paintings and prints from the initial sketches, artists and scientists collaborated to transform the scientific illustrations into a lively pictorial representation. In a watercolor, Alexander depicts a calculating instrument called a suanpan (Fig. 7.18). Against a blank background he shows a table divided into two compartments in which movable balls are strung on iron wires. The artist created another image on-site when he visited a shop in which a merchant is standing in front of a desk using a suan-pan to calculate the price of the goods (Fig. 7.19). The shopkeeper’s relaxed manner indicates his expertise in using the device. Barrow explained the principle of this calculation method and was impressed by its higher computation speed than European methods. He notes that the system is based on the use of decimals: …for the ease, simplicity, and convenience of its operations, it were to be wished was generally adopted in Europe, instead of the endless ways in which the integer is differently divided in different countries, and in the different provinces of the same country.15

15

Barrow (1805, p. 198).

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Fig. 7.18 William Alexander, Image of suan-pan, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

The suan-pan, provided insight into the development of Chinese mathematics and the mindset that gave rise to it. Barrow noted the different thinking patterns of the Chinese and concluded that this invention might be fairly attributed to Chinese disposition.16 Another technology that interested the embassy was metallurgy and metalsmithing. The invention and development of Chinese bellows used in metalworking dates back a long time. The earliest form was a leather bag or pi tuo impelled by power from human labor or livestock. Later it evolved into a form of machine using waterpower that was invented by the official and scientist Du Shi of the East Han period. It was not until the thirteenth century that Europeans first used this kind of water-impelled bellows.17 Staunton recorded the mechanism and structure of Chinese bellows, which is horizontal in design, as opposed to the vertical form of British bellows.18 This type of wooden bellows with a valve is exactly what was recorded and illustrated by Song Yingxing of the Ming Dynasty in Tiangong kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature) of 1637.19 In a watercolor sketch which was later developed into a print, a smith is shown pulling and pushing the panel controlling the fire with various iron vessels scattered around (Fig. 7.20). The caption expresses mixed feelings about the technology noting that “their cast iron is light and good, but their manufactures of wrought iron are very indifferent: they can neither make a hinge, nor a lock, nor even a nail that can be called good.”20 It further records the how the equipment is set up: “…the bellows of the smith is a box with a valvular piston, which, when not in use, serves as a seat, and also to contain his tools.”21 In spite of the negative comments, the embassy brought a Chinese bellow

16

Ibid. Needham (1986, p. 370). 18 Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 290). 19 Pan (2011). 20 Alexander (1805, caption of a traveling smith). 21 Ibid. 17

7.4 Scientific Apparatuses: Chinese Mathematics, Metallurgy, and Navigation

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Fig. 7.19 A trademan with his suan-pan (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

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Fig. 7.20 William Alexander, Image of a smith, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

back to England to study it closely.22 As with other aspects of Chinese science and technology, the embassy deemed the bellows backward by British standards, even though the Chinese invented the device much earlier than the Europeans. The accounts were always careful to assure audiences of the superiority of British science. The magnetic compass aroused great interest. It is believed to have been invented as a device for divination in the Han Dynasty, and was adopted for navigation during the eleventh century. The first usage by Europeans was in 1190.23 An engraving in Staunton’s account depicts the compass with scientific accuracy including the tiny magnetic needle and the characters on the device. The accompanying comments praise the device as “a great nicety,” “remarkably sensible,” and “perfection of the machine”24 (Fig. 7.21). Barrow believed that it had a material advantage over the larger European compasses in the inclination of its horizontal lines and a design that ensured steadiness.25 Staunton commented separately that the Chinese theory of magnetism was 22

Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, p. 290). Kreutz (1973, pp. 367–383). 24 Staunton (1798, Vol. 2, p. 441). 25 Ibid. (1798, Vol. 2, pp. 441–443). 23

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Fig. 7.21 Image of a compass (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

the reverse of that of Europeans, believing that the needle pointed south. He also cited the example of the Kangxi emperor who was interested in Western science, and was probably persuaded by the theory of the Jesuits.26 Staunton concluded that the Chinese had limited knowledge of magnetism, but that it “answers every purpose, in practice, to that nation” and satisfied the “immediate prospect of utility resulting from the continuance of every particular pursuit.”27 Although the embassy acknowledged that compass was a Chinese invention, they were still able to cite it as an example of Chinese backwardness, stating that it was merely used for practical purposes and no effort was made to understand the underlying scientific principles. Alexander’s illustrations of the suan-pan, bellows and other devices provide good examples of Chinese science and technology. He depicts various objects in two ways, either isolated from their environment or as part of a scene in which laborers are engaged in using the device. The intent was to convey knowledge of Chinese 26 27

Ibid. (1798, Vol. 2, p. 447). Ibid.

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science and technology to the British audience in a way that appeared to be objective. However, in text passages the embassy members described the apparatuses as outdated and limited to practical rather than scientific purposes, even though they were actually invented in China. The overall impression conveyed to British audiences was that China was a “stagnant” empire.

7.5 Agricultural Science Although there were only a few images related to Chinese agriculture, they reflect the research that the embassy conducted in this field, including on irrigation, fertilization, and other areas. Alexander created the illustrations using scientific methods in which he measured and described the scale, shape, structure, and mechanism of Chinese agricultural equipment and practices. The written comments reflect a generally positive view and contributed to the introduction and spread of these practical methods in Europe. Rivers across the Grand Canal run from west to east and flow into the canal. If the floods came or the water level got too high in the canal, the sluice gates would regulate water and allow it to flow into surrounding farm land for irrigation.28 When the bed of the river was higher than the adjoining land, the fields were irrigated with little difficulty, since water came naturally from an elevated canal. When it was level with the ground, peasants applied the two major methods for irrigation (Fig. 7.22). In this engraving, two men stand opposite each other on the banks holding a rope operating a device used to throw water into the reservoir. Beside them stands a long pole holding a lever that could turn on a pivot. A basket was fixed to one end of the shorter lever, which was dropped into the river to fill with water. With a small amount of power applied to the longer lever, men could raise it and pour the water into the reservoir.29 Alexander depicted two other irrigation machines, the fan che or chain pump, and tong che or water wheel. Alexander, Barrow, and Staunton investigated the structure, mechanism, and operation of these devices and described them scientifically in both commentary and images. Alexander’s watercolor of the chain pump shows the device in operation against a blank background (Fig. 7.23). Every part of the wheel is painted in great detail, showing the operation of the mechanism. The artist had clearly studied the complicated machine up close. It consists of a hollow wooden track holding a chain on which flat pieces of wood are fixed. As the chain moves around a wheel system, the slats convey the water upward, relying on laborers to provide the lifting power.30 The men tread on Tshaped projecting arms of the lifting mechanism to generate energy able to rotate

28

Bishop (1997, p. 71). Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, pp. 359–360). 30 Ibid. (1798, Vol. 4, pp. 479–480). 29

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Fig. 7.22 Image of Chinese irrigation (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Fig. 7.23 William Alexander, Image of chain pump, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

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Fig. 7.24 William Alexander, Image of chain pump with people, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

the chain and lift large amounts of water.31 In another watercolor, three peasants are shown treading on the projecting arms to lift water up into a reservoir (Fig. 7.24). It shows the context in which the chain pump operated. Alexander’s painting of the water wheel shows a large wheel with sixteen or eighteen spokes supported by two hard wood posts in the bed of the river (Fig. 7.25). The wheel consists of two unequal rims about fifteen inches apart. Half of the wheel was dipped into the river, while the other half rose above the elevated bank. Between 31

Ibid.

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the rims and the crossings of the spokes is a kind of basketwork, serving as floats which turn the wheel around with the impulse of the water. Attached to the rims are wood tubes that fill with water when the wheel turns into the river. As the wheel rises to the top, the tubes pour out the water into a wide trough placed on posts that convey the water to the desired location.32 The illustration indicates the different parts of the water wheel, with captions describing their structure and function in the same manner as the Chinese illustration of a waterwheel in Tiangong Kaiwu. In Alexander’s watercolor, the waterwheel is shown standing by a small hill along the river. And the faraway building is painted in a sketchy and unfinished manner. A print was developed from this watercolor in which the water wheel pushed a little further to the background where surrounding buildings and houses are more distinct (Fig. 7.26). Under the small hill stands a human figure whose height gives a sense of the large scale of the water wheel. Staunton praised the water wheel as “cheap in its materials, easy in its operation, and effectual to its purpose.”33 He studied the materials of water wheels, and found that they were made completely of bamboo without any metal parts, which showed the high level of craftsmanship of Chinese artisans. Staunton measured its effectiveness by calculating the amount of water the device can lift, and commented that “this wheel is thought to exceed, in most respects, any machine yet in use for similar purposes.”34 The embassy members praised these water wheels and saw them as evidence of the value of Chinese technology. Alexander’s print of children collecting manure provides a look at Chinese methods of fertilization (Fig. 7.27). The caption notes that the most popular employment among elderly people and children was to pick up manure and make it into cakes for sale.35 China was one of the earliest agricultural civilizations to realize the value of manure. The embassy examined this fertilization method from a scientific perspective and discovered that the application of manure, that is, the mixture of animal and vegetable substances, can help the plants grow.36 As Staunton describes, when this mucilage is added to the clay, it “renders the clay more friable and to give tenacity to light and sandy soils, as well as to maintain in both a proper degree 32

The caption of the water wheel in Staunton’s account records: “A. B. The two rims or bamboo follies of the wheel. A being about one feet or eighteen inches in diameter less than B. C. The Nave on Axis near the two extremities of this axis are inserted sixteen or eighteen spokes of bamboo. D. which cross each other at F. where they are bound together and strengthened by a ring of split twisted bamboo G. concentric with the rims or circumferences of the wheel. The spokes are continued from hence to the two peripheries of the wheel to which they are firmly bound with a strong cordage made of split bamboo Between the spokes is woven the basket work H. which is made of the same materials and serves for the floats or ladle-boards of the wheel. L. Scoops or tubes of bamboo fixed to the rim of the wheel one end of which M. is open These scoops are fixed at a certain angle with the axis that the water may be retained in them till it ascends to the vertex of the wheel. O A long trough supported between the upright pasts R. from this proceed two tubes P. to convey the water from there other reservoir on the bans. S. Parks to support the transitions on which the wheel runs”. 33 Staunton (1798, Vol. 5, pp. 499–500). 34 Staunton (1798, Vol. 5, p. 502). 35 Alexander (1814, caption of Plate VIII). 36 Staunton (1798, Vol. 4, pp. 474–479).

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Fig. 7.25 William Alexander, Image of a water wheel, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

of temperature and humidity.”37 In the image, a boy is shown kneeling on one leg picking up manure from the ground while an older boy stands nearby with a spade in hand. On their backs are baskets which contain manure. The image not only conveys this Chinese agricultural practice to the British audience, it reflects the harsh living conditions of ordinary Chinese people. In contrast to most other Chinese scientific technologies, which the embassy regarded as backward, the embassy recognized the advantages of the agricultural equipment and methods of the Chinese, which contributed to the spread of Chinese agricultural science in Europe.

7.6 Military Science A key focus of the embassy was Chinese military science, which was essential to British empire’s assessment of Chinese power. During the journey, they carefully recorded details of Chinese military architecture, weaponry, and equipment in text 37

Ibid. (1798, Vol. 4, p. 477).

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Fig. 7.26 Image of section and elevation of a wheel and by the Chinee for raising water (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Fig. 7.27 Children collecting manure (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, handcolored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

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and image in order to weigh the comparative strength of both nations, as part of the broader goal of British imperial expansion. Barrow included a print created by Parish, consisting of six images of Chinese cannons, in his Travels in China (Fig. 7.28). The images included cannons used on land, and those fired from warships, with detailed depictions isolated from any background. He affirmed that gunpowder was invented in China and expressed the opinion that it was not introduced to Europe by Marco Polo, who returned from his travels in 1295, but most likely by Roger Bacon, who recorded the ingredients of gunpowder before his death in 1292.38 And though the Kangxi emperor had boasted to the Jesuits of their use of gunpowder for over two thousand years, Barrow speculated that the Chinese did not use gunpowder in military weapons until the Portuguese taught them to use canons in 1621, noting that Chinese matchlocks resembled those of the Portuguese.39 In fact, the Chinese military scientists had known how to use gunpowder to make fired weapons as early as mid-tenth century during the Northern Song Dynasty. During the sixteenth century, the Ming imperial court bought, researched, and made models of Portuguese weapons for their own use as part of the exchange of scientific information between China and the Jesuits.40 Typically, Barrow concluded that the quality of Chinese gunpowder and fired weapons were of low quality. For example, he conducted chemical tests on Chinese gunpowder, and discovered that “they know not the art of granulating the paste, as in Europe, but use it in a coarse powder, which sometimes cakes together into a solid mass; and, from the impurity of the nitre, the least exposure to the air, by attracting the moisture, makes it unfit for service.”41 He described the Chinese cannons he observed in Beijing, the frontier of Canton, and Hangzhou prefecture as “a few rude, ill-shapen, and disproportionate pieces, lying unmounted on the ground.”42 Barrow finally concluded that Chinese military science remained stagnant as “the two Jesuits, Schall and Verbiest, took great pains to instruct them in the method of casting canon; in which, however, they have not made any progress or improvement.”43 In addition to cannons, which were illustrated by Parish, a print in Staunton’s account displays seven kinds of Chinese military weapons on a blank background, including a fired gun on a warship, a bow with case, arrows, a helmet, a shield, a sword, and a matchlock (Fig. 7.29). The images were developed from several watercolor sketches by Alexander, including a cannon on a warship, arrows, a helmet, a shield, and two matchlocks. The artist appears to have closely examined his subjects, as the pattern of the monster on the shield is delineated carefully with bright colors (Fig. 7.30).

38

Barrow (1805, pp. 201–202). Ibid. 40 Needham (2003, p. 95). 41 Barrow (1805, p. 200). 42 Ibid. (1805, p. 202). 43 Ibid. 39

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Fig. 7.28 Cannons (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection

Fig. 7.29 Instruments of War (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

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Fig. 7.30 William Alexander, Image of a shield and military fortress, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

The watercolor of the helmet was derived from a portrait of a Chinese soldier whom Alexander had sketched onsite. The watercolor of arrows and two matchlocks also show their structure and mechanism in a close-up view. Compared with the illustration of fired weapons in Huangchao Liqi Tushi, the British artists were only able to represent the general image of these weapons without differentiating the many variations, most likely due to limited access. Through neutral scientific illustrations, Alexander depicted various kinds of military weapons together without contextual content to convey their appearance, structure, and mechanisms. In a revealing watercolor, Alexander depicts a line of soldiers dressed in splendid armor with a fortress in the background (Fig. 7.31).

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Fig. 7.31 William Alexander, view of a Chinese military post, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

The watercolor was developed from a composite of several sketches, including detailed studies of the architecture of the fortress. In one of the sketches, he shows the whole building with the details of a window and loop hole. He also examined the costume and manner of Chinese soldiers, especially the eight banners representing the elite military forces of the Qing empire. The bannermen were instrumental in many military campaigns undertaken by the Qianlong emperor, such as the Great Ten Campaigns. A watercolor of the soldiers depicts the materials composing the armor, which he describes as “clumsy, inconvenient, and inimical to the performance of military exercises” although it appears splendid and warlike.44 This watercolor provided the basic pictorial composition and subjects for the final print of Plate 17 in Staunton’s account. It includes a pair of “tigers of war,” which were developed from another watercolor sketching showing two such soldiers fighting (Figs. 7.32 and 7.33). Alexander notes that these soldiers were dressed to resemble tigers to embolden them for military action.45 In these images, the soldiers are depicted as being well-disciplined, wellorganized, courageous, and proud, although the accompanying written accounts are largely negative. For example, the caption for the “tiger of war” describes infantry soldiers that assume “all kinds of whimsical attitudes, jumping about and tumbling over one other, like so many mountebanks.”46 In spite of the exotic uniforms and 44

William Alexander, Costume of China, caption of a Chinese soldier. Ibid. 46 Ibid. 45

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Fig. 7.32 A Chinese military post (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

impressive demeanor of the soldiers, Alexander concludes that “indeed the whole of the Chinese military tactics are as absurd as they are ridiculous.”47 The negative evaluation of Chinese military equipment is also evident in the caption of a print of a soldier of Zhushan, in which Alexander comments that “the army of China is ill-disciplined, and its strength consists only in its numbers, which would not compensate in the day of battle for their ignorance of military tactics, and want of personal courage.”48 Overall, the embassy determined that the Chinese military “cannot be considered formidable” and is “naturally effeminate, and without the courage of European soldiers.”49 The splendid appearance of the Chinese army belied its vulnerability. While the embassy’s images depicted the Chinese military soldiers, equipment, and architecture as meeting British expectations for a huge and powerful country, the texts describe Chinese military science as backward and stagnant. This view emboldened the British in military to pursue military engagements such as the Opium War that furthered rising imperial ambitions.

47

Ibid. Ibid. 49 Ibid. 48

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Fig. 7.33 William Alexander, Portrait of tiger of war, 1793, watercolor on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

7.7 Scientific Aspects of Chinese Arts The embassy applied its scientific approach to every area of observation, even art and culture. In studying Chinese painting, they focused on issues of three-dimensionality and perspective; in music they catalogued harmonic and rhythmic patterns, reflecting a belief that art and science were interconnected. As with every other aspect of society,

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the embassy evaluated Chinese art in light of European standards and generally deemed it inferior. On painting, Staunton offered only a brief discussion on the watercolors painted on the walls of the Hongya Garden where embassy members resided. He noticed that the underlying drawings rendered subjects accurately through the use of perspective, but totally neglected light and shade. A lake with trees and houses was represented without shadows, which the Chinese considered a blemish.50 While Staunton’s opinions of Chinese painting were fairly neutral, Barrow expressed disdain: They can be considered in no other light than as miserable daubers, being unable to pencil out a correct outline of many objects, to give body to the same by the application of proper lights and shadows, and to lay on the nice shades of color, so as to resemble the tints of nature.51

Barrow recorded an incident involving works by Castiglione, the Italian Jesuit painter in the imperial court. An old eunuch opened a chest to show Barrow some artwork and asked him if any European could match these extraordinary Chinese paintings. When Barrow pointed out that they were by Castiglione, the eunuch closed the chest and would not let him to see them again. Barrow found that a similar style of painting decorated the palace halls, and recorded that they followed the Chinese manner without shading or showing distance. The reason was that the Qianlong emperor believed “the imperfections of the eye afforded no reason why the objects of nature should also be copied as imperfect.”52 A similar idea was expressed by his minister in response to a portrait of the British King in which a side of the nose was shaded. He said the work was “spoiled by the dirt on the face.”53 Barrow did recognize the tastefulness and precision of Chinese paintings of natural subjects and brought several works from Canton back England. But in spite of the ability to create accurate renderings, Barrow belittled Chinese painters as “scrupulous copyists” and “servile imitators” devoid of personal judgement. He said they were “not in the least feeling the force or the beauty of any specimen of the arts that may come before them.”54 Reflecting his deep prejudice, he dismissed Chinese painting as “replete with absurdity.”55 These and other comments by embassy members capture a transitional period when Britain’s love of Chinese culture (“Chinoiserie”) fell into decline due to its perceived moral decadence and superficiality, and was supplanted by Neoclassical values. Embassy members were attracted by the new techniques and exotic taste found in Chinese architecture, but their overall opinions were mixed. Alexander conducted systematic research on various Chinese palaces, pavilions, pagodas, and bridges. From his perspective as a military officer, Parish created scientific drawings of the 50

Staunton (1798, Vol. 3, p. 126). Barrow (1805, p. 216). 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. (1805, p. 219). 55 Ibid. 51

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Potala temple in Rehe and the Great Wall. Both artists examined the design, materials, aesthetic aspects of these structures in order analyze and classify them. Macartney was aware of the difference in aesthetic tastes between China and Britain, but offered high praise for Chinese architecture. He noted that although Chinese architecture had a distinctive style that diverged from British ideas of composition and proportion, it produced a pleasing effect as “we sometimes see a person, without a single good feature in his face, have, nevertheless, a very agreeable countenance.”56 By contrast, Barrow expressed a dislike for Chinese architecture, describing it as “unsightly as unsolid; without elegance or convenience of design, and without any settled proportion; mean in its appearance, and clumsy in the workmanship.”57 Barrow’s preference for Neoclassicism over Chinoiserie was revealed fully in his discussions of taste. He believed that good taste not only referred to good proportion, but also the gradual transition and smoothness throughout the whole.58 As early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, Britain witnessed a return to classical architectural forms in reaction to the Rocco style. Four influential books were published during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, including Vitruvius Britannicus of Colen Campbell in 1715, Palladio’s Four Books of Architecture in 1715, De Re Aedificatoria in 1726, and The Designs of Inigo Jones in 1727. These books helped to revive the simplicity and purity of classical architecture, which resulted in the firm establishment of Palladian architecture in 18th-century Britain. Evaluating Chinese architecture in light of Neoclassical taste, Barrow complained that “there is neither symmetry of parts, nor ease, nor particular utility” as well as “the large ill-shapen and unnatural figures of lions, dragons, and serpents, grinning on the tops and corners of the roofs.”59 Gardens were a major artform in China, and Alexander admired these spaces as he did the architecture, seeing both as features that could appeal to the British taste for the picturesque. Both Barrow and Alexander were absent from the trip to the imperial gardens at Rehe, so Barrow’s discussion of Chinese gardening cited a long passage from Lord Macartney’s journal, which compared Chinese gardeners to painters: A Chinese gardener is the painter of nature; and though totally ignorant of perspective, as a science, produces the happiest effects by the management, or rather penciling, of distances, if I may use the expression, by relieving or keeping down the features of the scene, by contrasting trees of a bright with those of a dusky foliage, by bringing them forward, or throwing them back, according to their bulk and their figure, and by introducing buildings of different dimensions, either heightened by strong coloring, or softened by simplicity and omission of ornament.60

56

Ibid. (1805, p. 92). Ibid. (1805, p. 221). 58 Ibid. (1805, p. 221). Barrow discussed that “Proportion, therefore, alone is not sufficient to constitute beauty. There must be no stiffness, no sudden breaking off from a straight line to a curve; but the changes should be easy, not visible in any particular part, but running imperceptibly through the whole. Utility has also been considered as one of the constitute parts of beauty”. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. (1805, p. 86). 57

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The only features he found disagreeable were large porcelain figures and huge masses of rockwork, which he thought reflected a “dearth of taste” due to their “bombast and extravagance.”61 Macartney related these elements to the pompous displays favored by wealthy people. He extended this line of criticism to Chinoiserie style of architecture and the ornaments popular in Britain, commenting that they “convey nothing to us but the whims and dreams of sickly fancy, without an atom of grandeur, taste, or propriety.” Obviously, after seeing the genuine Chinese gardens in person, Macartney realized the great difference between Chinese art and European Chinoiserie. In contrast to other members who favored neoclassical styles, Macartney admired the original design of Chinese gardens. In Travels in China, Barrow examined various kinds of Chinese craftsmanship and offered important information on Chinese products for the British market. While he recognized the superb techniques and craftsmanship of many Chinese products, he disparaged their “weakness” compared to British tastes. The exception was Chinese earthen wares, which he said “have carried to a pitch of perfection no hitherto equaled by any nation, except the Japanese.” He drew on his scientific background to examine the chemical composition of materials like kaolin clay and the process for creating pottery. Contradicting some of his other pronouncements, Barrow asserted the superiority of Wedgwood porcelains and dismissed Chinese forms as “rude and ill-designed,” and as “generally the work of the wives and children of the laboring poor.”62 In examining the silk and cotton industries, Barrow found that the Chinese adhered to ancient methods and production remained stagnant. In his view, the only products in which the Chinese attained a kind of perfection was the cutting of ivory, which he was sure would have a large market in Britain. He concluded that the stagnation of Chinese arts was due to the pride of the government which despised any foreign products and inventions. Music has always been an essential Chinese artform and the embassy spent time observing and evaluating it. The print of an itinerant musician shows a figure playing a tambourine with a mallet held between the toes of one foot, a pair of cymbals with the other foot, and a lute with his hands accompanied by his voice (Fig. 7.34). Beside him lies a pair of rattles connected by a piece of ribbon and a heart-shaped hollow piece of wood. In his bag are a flute and trumpet. The caption describes the characteristics of each instrument and the type of music it played, expressing a typically negative attitude, with “noisy instruments” that produced “execrable” music.63 The caption goes on to extol the advantages of European harmony, saying that the few Chinese who had heard it “pretend to dislike it.”64 Barrow commented that Chinese neither cultivate music as a science nor have they “learned as an elegant accompaniment” or “as an instrument of genteel life.”65 As the picture shows, most of the musicians were hired to play music to entertain people 61

Ibid. Ibid. (1805, p. 204). 63 Alexander (1814, caption of Plate XIX). 64 Ibid. 65 Barrow (1805, p. 209). 62

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Fig. 7.34 A musician (reproduced from Picturesque Representations), 1814, hand-colored etchings with aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

who paid for it. Expressing complete disdain for Chinese music he says that there is “none that is even tolerable to a European ear.”66 Nevertheless, he included a set of prints in his Travels in China that was developed from the watercolors of various Chinese music instruments from the British collection in Canton (Fig. 7.35). He also included a transcription of one Chinese melody known as Jasmine taken down by Mr. Hittner, which introduced Chinese music to Europe for the first time.67 Alexander created several images of Chinese operas and dramas. Plate 30 in Staunton’s account was developed from Alexander’s watercolor, which represents a scene of the Peking Opera staged in Tianjin (Fig. 7.36). The performers are dressed in elaborate ancient costumes performing standardized plots which are outlined in Staunton’s narrative. A band of Chinese musicians in the background accompanies the singers showing how the instruments were held. The embassy members attending the opera felt that the accompaniment was loud and unpleasant. Anderson commented that “some of (the instruments) were very long, and resembled trumpets; others had the appearance of French-horns and clarinets: the sounds of the latter brought to my recollection that of a Scotch bag-pipe.” Like Barrow, Anderson disliked Chinese music, concluding that “their music, being destitute both of melody and harmony, was of course, very disagreeable to our ears, which

66 67

Ibid. (1805, p. 210). Ibid. (1805, p. 211).

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Fig. 7.35 Musical Instruments (reproduced from Travels in China), based on the drawing by Henry William Parish, 1804, print. Image courtesy of Wang Zhiwei’s private book collection

are accustomed to such perfection in those essential points of music.”68 Treating Chinese music as merely a form of exoticism, the embassy dismissed it as inferior to British taste. The embassy used criteria such as three-dimensionality, perspective, and proportion to describe various works of art and architecture, but almost always felt it necessary to add their own qualitative judgements. In doing so, they pointed to a number of recurring themes to underscore their dismissal of Chinese art: its superficiality, lack of rationality, crudeness and lack of taste. Music was equally found wanting, because its unfamiliarity sounded harsh and dissonant to European ears. The generally negative attitude, mitigated only by some members’ admiration for Chinese gardens, revealed that the embassy’s starting point for evaluating Chinese culture was always a sense of British superiority. The Macartney Embassy carried out extensive research on Chinese science and technology, using paintings, diagrams, and prints, along with commentary, to capture their learnings. Members recorded the structure of Chinese apparatuses and equipment as well as the underlying scientific methodologies as way of gauging the progress of Chinese civilization. Embassy artists were particularly effective in depicting these devices to show the contexts in which they were used and to 68

Bishop (1997, p. 50).

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Fig. 7.36 A scene of historical play at Chinese stage (reproduced from The Authentic Account), 1797, engraving. Image courtesy of Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

make them accessible to British audiences. The collaboration between the artists and scientists was instrumental in capturing detailed knowledge of Chinese science and technology. Thematically, the embassy was less interested in applying objective findings to the power relations in Bruno Latour’s theory of “center of calculation,” than in applying the models of Kitson, Raj, and Benjamin Elman, which see the transference of science in a multilateral way. It was a two-way exchange, with the embassy offering examples of British scientific advancements to the imperial court and bringing various aspects of Chinese sciences back to Britain. Chinese irrigation methods, in particular, proved to be the most efficient and effective of that time. But in spite of the valuable information on Chinese science and technology the embassy uncovered, they generally deemed most aspects of Chinese science to be backward and stagnant, as revealed in Dr. Gillan’s comments: In all the mechanical arts and manufactures, the Chinese content themselves with the processes and methods of operation already known, which they imitate without the smallest change or deviation, without ever inquirying whether they might be improved by any addition or alteration in the mode of conducting them.69

Macartney agreed that the Chinese “in every respect to science…are certainly far behind the world.”70 Even porcelain-making, for which Joseph Banks brought back 69 70

Marshall (1993, p. 25). Ibid.

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detailed instructions, were considered imperfect in form in the eyes of the embassy members in comparison with British products. Their conclusions, based on fairly limited research, reflected their inherent cultural bias, in which they viewed China as far behind Britain in virtually every field. This sense of superiority fed the growing imperial ambition of the British empire for global expansion.

References Alexander, William. 1805. The Costume of China: Illustrated in Forty-Eight Coloured Engravings. London: published by William Miller, Albemarle Street. Alexander, William. 1814. Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese. Printed by John Murray. Barrow, John. 1805. Travels in China. Philadelphia: W. F. M’Laughlin. Bishop, Kevin. 1997. China’s Imperial Way. Hong Kong: Odyssey Publications. Benjamin Elman. China and the World History of Science 1450–1770. https://www.princeton.edu/ ~elman/documents/China_and_the_World_History_of_Science.pdf. Accessed on February 8, 2022. Kreutz, Barbara M. 1973. Mediterranean contributions to the medieval mariner’s compass. Technology and Culture 14 (3): 367–383. Marshall, P. J. 1993. Britain and China in the late eighteenth century. In Ritual and Diplomacy: The Macartney Mission to China, 1792–1794, ed. Robert A. Bickers. London: Wesweep Press. Needham, Joseph. 1986. The Chinese translation of Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Part 2. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. Needham, Joseph. 2003. Military volume In the Chinese translation of Science and Civilization in China. Beijing: Science Press. Pan, Jixing, ed. 2011. Tiangong Kaiwu. Beijing: China International Broadcasting Press. Staunton, George. 1798. An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China ... together with a Relation of the Voyage Undertaken. London: W. Bulmer and Co. for G. Nicol.

Chapter 8

The Legacy of the Macartney Embassy

When the Macartney Embassy returned to Britain, several members published accounts and journals of the journey that deeply influenced British perceptions of China. The visual images drew particular notice. Works by William Alexander, Thomas Hickey, John Barrow, and Henry William Parish were turned into engravings and prints that reached a wide audience, including royalty and intellectual elites as well as the general public. These publications presented British audiences with a more realistic picture of China that was based on empirical observation, even though the material was adapted and presented to reinforce British standards. The images inspired other British artists to initiate a new wave of passion for China. Artists such as George Mason, Thomas Allom, and the interior designers of the Royal Pavilion Frederick Crace and Robert Jones, borrowed the motifs, subjects, and even whole pictorial compositions from the embassy’s images. The appropriation of Alexander’s China imagery in particular transformed the British understanding of Chinese civilization from an exotic and mysterious backwater to a complex, multifaceted society.

8.1 The Publications of the Embassy The explosion of interest in the embassy’s publications took place in a burgeoning print culture, where readership among both elites and the middle-class was expanding rapidly and leading intellectuals like Joseph Banks were widely respected. Banks monitored the publication of Staunton’s account and provided advice on the selection of the visual images to emphasize both artistic and scientific dimensions. The publications were covered in a number of periodicals, which helped engage the interest of a broader public. Alexander’s two print books were related to the genres of costume studies and ethnographic research, which broadened their appeal even further. One major channel for the British public to acquire knowledge of China was through the publications of the Macartney Embassy. 18th -century British print culture © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8_8

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saw a marked increase in the quantity and diversity of publications. Nonfiction books, illustrated books, poetry, pamphlets, sermons, ballads, novels, periodicals, newspapers and children’s literature all became popular.1 The reading public grew fast with the spread of literacy in the eighteenth century.2 Books could be bought from stores or individuals or they could be borrowed from circulating libraries, subscription libraries, and book clubs.3 The reading public consisted mainly of elites and the expanding middle-class.4 By the end of the eighteenth century, London had become the center of the European print trade, surpassing Amsterdam, Venice, Augsburg, and Paris.5 In London, illustrated books became very popular, especially with the appearance of John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery in which George Nicol was also involved.6 Art books illustrated with printed images enabled people to appreciate the works by art masters without traveling to Continental Europe to see the originals, and they were able to appreciate the scenery and people of distant lands at home through illustrated travel books. Four major publications stemming directly from the embassy contain visual images of China: George Staunton’s An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China (1797), John Barrow’s Travels in China (1804), William Alexander’s The Costume of China (1805) and Alexander’s Picturesque Representations of the Costume and Manners of the Chinese (1814).

8.1.1 George Staunton’s Account and John Barrow’s “Travels in China” British elites played a key role in accumulating, researching, and disseminating knowledge of China, especially Joseph Banks, who was instrumental in selecting the visual images and overseeing the publication of George Staunton’s account. The State Library of New South Wales holds Papers Concerning the Publication of Staunton’s Account. Sir. George Macartney’s Embassy to China, ca. 1797.7 These papers record a list of engravings, drawings, plans and charts that Banks required to be included in the account. It consists of three parts: large prints (24), plans and charts (24), and engravings bound up with the letter pages (17). In the actual account, some images were deleted or added in place of the original selections.8 Among the 44 plates, 25 1

Harris (2006, pp. 283–293). Brewer (2013, p. 169). 3 Ibid. (2013, p. 183). 4 Harris (2006, pp. 283). 5 Ibid. 6 John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery was published in London between 1791 and 1805. It is an illustrated version of Shakespeare’s plays with images created by the best British artists of the period. George Nicol was responsible for letterpress. 7 See Joseph Banks’ paper, online source, see reference. 8 Ibid. 2

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images were by Alexander, and the remainder were by Barrow, Parish, Edwards, and other unnamed contributors. As discussed in earlier chapters, Alexander created most of the representational images of landscapes and figures, and Edwards focused on images of natural history. Parish created diagrams and graphic images, and Barrow was responsible for making maps. Quite often the artists and scientists collaborated to create visual images related to scientific topics. Staunton’s account was published by George Nicol, the bookseller of George III, who also published the account of Cook’s third voyage. According to Banks’ records, the estimated cost of 2000 copies of Staunton’s account was £4841.18. And the actual cost was £4111, including £2283 for engraving the plates and £922 for image printing.9 The cost of the visual images occupies a much larger proportion of the total expense, which indicates the importance given to art in conveying knowledge and information. Banks’ emphasis on art might have been influenced by his colleagues and friends in various clubs and societies formed by British intellectual elites. For example, he was a member of Johnson Literary Club which was organized by Joshua Reynolds, the president of the Royal Academy of Art. Lord Macartney was also a member. Banks, Macartney, and other elites very likely discussed and exchanged information about China in these settings. There is a special version of Staunton’s account in the library collection at the University of Hong Kong. The five volumes bear the bookplate of R. H. AlexanderBennett, and the stamp of A. Bahr, who claimed to have acquired the book from a descendant of Lord Macartney, which means that it was probably Lord Macartney’s personal copy.10 The book is the second corrected edition of 1798, and was enlarged to five volumes to include the original folio volume and an addition of 210 illustrations in color on rice paper. These extra images include pictures of birds (9), portraits (27), mythological figures (11), costumes of male figures (5), gardens (9), insects (12), fish (5), pictures of occupations (17), boats (5), tea-making (13), porcelain-making (11), costume of female figures (8), flowers and plants (90), and punishment (6). They might have been commissioned by Macartney or his family members to supplement the text of the account.11 These additional illustrations are Chinese export paintings, which were very popular in 18th - and 19th - century Europe. In the late eighteenth century, studios of export paintings were established on the Tongwen street and Jingyuan street near the Thirteen Factories in Canton, where Europeans could order these paintings.12 Since the mid-nineteenth century, these studios began to export a large number of paintings to Europe as part of a profit-making enterprise. These works combine the artistic methods of Chinese and European painting, and thus exhibit a hybrid form that is distinct from both Chinese and European traditions. They became the major source for Europeans to learn more about China during this period.13 The popularity 9

Ibid. For the introduction of the account at HKU, see Iris Chan, online source, see reference. 11 Ibid. 12 Cheng (2008, p. 3). 13 Ming and Liu (2003, p. 10). 10

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of Chinese export paintings is noted in the memoir of Audreas van Braam Houckgeest, who indicates that these works were a significant trade item at the end of the eighteenth century. He joined the Dutch Embassy that met the Qianlong emperor in 1794 and purchased more than 1,800 Chinese export paintings when he left Canton. The subjects of these paintings coincide with the additional illustrations in Staunton’s account held in the collection of HKU, such as occupations, punishments, boats, fish, birds and flowers.14 This copy of Staunton’s account also includes three sets of paintings depicting the manufacturing process of tea, silk, and porcelain, which were popular items frequently exported to the West. The additional illustrations were likely added to the account to illustrate the text passages lacking accompanying paintings by Alexander and other embassy artists. The embassy was kept under strict surveillance throughout their journey and opportunities to observe China were limited, especially for Alexander, who was not allowed to travel to Rehe or join the inland expedition from Hangzhou to Canton. In addition to filling in gaps, the export paintings were part of a cultural exchange, intermixing Chinese and British motifs and artists. Europeans gravitated to certain kinds of Chinese images, so the art featured in embassy publications catered to this taste. Chinese artisans followed suit by producing their own Chinese paintings for European audiences. Barrow’s Travels in China of 1804 was an important source of the knowledge about China during the period. In addition to chronicling the embassy’s journey, Barrow covered a wide range of subjects, including the Chinese people, society, science, and the arts. The account contains eight images, including the portrait of Wang Daren, the imperial garden of Rehe, the dwelling of a Mandarin official, cannons, boats, millwork, the water wheel, musical instruments, and a bridge. The main sources of the prints were paintings and sketches by Alexander and Parish. Each print is designed to illustrate key facets of Chinese life for British audiences. The top echelon of society is captured in a print of the imperial park in Rehe, which combines an original sketch by Parish and a more developed version by Alexander. The images of Mandarin home and a humble village show the different living conditions of Chinese people depending on their social status. The print of the mill provides a detailed view of a Chinese irrigation method, showing the water wheel linked to a mechanism run on human labor. Chinese engineering is on display in a print of a bridge near Suzhou, which Barrow studied closely. The image was developed a sketch by Alexander who painted a half section of the bridge with numbers indicating its different parts and measurements. Stylistically, the images use picturesque coloring and other techniques to convey a pleasant and harmonious image of China. Barrow’s commentary, however, is openly disdainful of virtually every aspect of China. Ironically, Barrow, a champion of scientific detachment, is highly subjective in expressing his biased views, whereas Staunton’s account is more neutral and balanced. Over the four decades following

14

Ibid. (2003, 11).

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the expedition, Barrow exerted a great impact on the discourse related to China as a contributing writer for the Quarterly Review.15

8.1.2 William Alexander’s Two Books of Prints In addition to the accounts by Staunton and Barrow, Alexander published two books containing visual images of China: Costume of China and Picturesque Representation of the Costume and Manners of the Chinese. William Miller (1769–1844) published a multi-volume series on the costumes of China, Russia, Turkey, Austria, and Britain in the early 1800s. The revival of costume books during this period came with an intensified interest in domestic and foreign apparel. Improved techniques reduced printing costs, so elaborately illustrated books became popular items for the leisure market. Miller employed William Alexander to design and etch the plates for The Costume of China published in 1805. Costume of China was expected to supplement Staunton’s official account. The books’ prospectus states: W. Alexander proposes to publish in Numbers, a series of Plates, (to be engraved by himself,) illustrating the various Dresses, Customs, and Ceremonies; the Civil, Military, and Naval Architecture, and other subjects peculiar to that extraordinary Empire. It is proposed to complete the Whole in Twelve Numbers; the First to be delivered immediately after the publication of the Account of the Chinese Embassy by Sir George Staunton (to which, it is presumed, it will be an useful Appendix.) One Number to be published on the first day of every succeeding Month, and each to contain Four Coloured Prints, on royal quarto paper, and four pages of descriptive Letter-press, the same size as the Account of the Embassy.16

Costume studies have a long tradition in western visual culture. Merilyn Savil asserts that costume studies began in the late Middle Ages.17 Later works like travel accounts, popular genre prints, and cosmographies and atlases all contain images of costumes in response to an interest in ethnography and the clothing identifying different ethnic and racial groups. Savil cites the example of Vecellio’s Habiti Antichi et Moderni (The Costumes of Ancients and Moderns), 1590–1598, which she believes was the largest and most elaborate costume book up to the sixteenth century.18 This popular genre introduced Western audiences to the lives, tradition and costumes of people from all over the world. The source for the most exotic costumes of the time were expeditions like the Macartney Embassy and James Cooks’ voyages to the South Pacific. The general format of a costume study from this period is to put people dressed in elaborate costumes against a blank background, as way of creating an iconic look to

15

Collins (2014, p. 50). Alexander (1805). 17 Savil (2011, pp. 124–138). 18 Ibid. 16

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identify each culture. Costume books therefore functioned as a kind of visual ethnography. William Miller’s costume book series accompanies images with explanatory texts that purport to define national identities through people’s dress and manners. The works represented social hierarchies within countries ranging from the wealthiest officials to the poorest laborers. Alexander uses the same basic approach, although his costume book goes beyond clothing to illustrate three additional aspects of Chinese life: the customs of local people, types of architecture, and means of transportation. Within each plate, an enlarged subject is set against a simple background, with an explanatory note providing more information. The postscript of Alexander’s Costume of China emphasizes the combination of the picturesque aesthetic and realistic aspect of the dress and manner of Chinese people: Each character will be drawn from life, and every minutia of dress, and the implements and appendages to their different employments, with badges of their various officers, will be attended to with the most scrupulous exactness.19

Clearly, Alexander was intensely interested in costume studies and contributed to the fact that “Great Britain offers as many interesting subjects for a Costume as any country in Europe.”20 Leading engravers including John Hall, Joseph Collyer, and Thomas Medland were engaged to convert Alexander’s drawings and watercolors into prints. The technique involved combining etching and aquatint to generate the effect of a vivid watercolor and enable people to picture themselves at the actual scene. With his mastery of aquatint technique, Alexander presented the British audience a vivid portrayal of Chinese people in various occupations and a detailed depiction of Chinese landscapes, architecture, and science and technology. The Picturesque aesthetic he used appealed a wide British audience ranging from bibliophiles, antiquarians, amateur artists, and figures from government and military armies.21 Unlike Staunton’s account, in which each motif was arranged into a coherent composition, Alexander’s Costume of China highlights each costume in a series of smaller-scale vignettes that offer an individual view of each subject. Among the 384 subscribers to the initial issues of Costume of China, the first group includes royals, aristocrats, and landed gentry. The second group includes leading professionals of key industries like politicians, merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and scholars. And the third group includes people from the arts and publishing industry like artists, engravers, publishers, booksellers, and a small group of elite female readers.22 After publishing Costumes of China, William Miller began another book series entitled Picturesque Representation of the Dress and Manners of Various Countries, among which is Picturesque Representation of the Dress and Manners of 19

Alexander (1805). Ibid. 21 For the collecting of “Costume of China,” see Zhu (2021, pp. 89–107). 22 Ibid. 20

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the Chinese (1814). Miller transferred the project to John Murray in 1812, and the book was then published under Murray’s name in 1814. It was expected to target a wider popular market with a non-specialist audience at a lower price. The book selected the first-hand images from the two earlier books along with secondary sources from Mason’s book. It used a single-portrait format, reduced range of colors, little aquatint, and blank background settings. Picturesque Representation catered to a wide middle-class audience through shorter letterpress texts for easier reading and understanding.23

8.1.3 The Influence of the Embassy’s Publications In addition to the embassy members’ full accounts, the editors of British periodicals and journals published excerpts of their travel narratives to attract middle-class readers and convey first-hand knowledge of China. Periodicals also carried critical reviews of these scholarly works on China, identifying information gaps and proposing solutions. The editors were usually educated men who had never visited China, although their reviews and comments played a crucial role in shaping the image of China after the Macartney Embassy.24 Sometimes, the articles in the journals contain the visual images of China, such as The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, a weekly periodical begun in 1822.25 It introduced British readers to the often-exotic aspects of Chinese technology. For example, an article from January 4, 1823 included an illustration taken from Alexander’s account of Chinese irrigating devices.26 The accompanying text passages describe the operation of the Chinese chain pump in scientific terms. The editor later commented that the Chinese did not understand the principle behind the pump and that Mr. Van Heythuysen invented a similar mechanism for applying power to canal barges. Another article from June 14, 1823 included an illustration of the Chinese cangue that was also derived from Alexander’s account.27 The author relates the device to the Chinese legal system and highlights its exoticism for British readers. The images from embassy accounts that were repurposed in this way led to broad exposure that influenced British perceptions of China. There are few records of how audiences responded to these widely circulated images, but they clearly changed how people thought and felt about China. On the subject of women, for example, a May 1795 edition of Universal Magazine cited Anderson’s view that, in contrast to the earlier Jesuit accounts stating that Chinese women lacked freedom, there were actually a considerable number of women in the

23

Ibid. (2021, pp. 109–120). Collin (2014, p. 69). 25 Ibid. (2014, p. 63). 26 The Mirror, Vol. 1, (January 4, 1823, p. 146). 27 The Mirror, Vol. 2 (June 14, 1823, p. 57). 24

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crowded streets of Peking.28 Alexander reinforced this perception by including many women in his paintings of the cities and villages. Edinburg Magazine of May 1798 offered an abridged version of the embassy’s reception and the kowtow incident. And subjects like Chinese gambling and public amusement were covered in many journals and periodicals popular with British readers.29

8.2 Revived Chinoiserie: The Royal Pavilion at Brighton In the revival of Chinoiserie that followed, a China-inspired interior decoration was installed at of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and artists like Thomas Allom took up Chinese subjects. In spite of their popularity as exotic artifacts, the publications by the Macartney Embassy were first and foremost intended to be scientific documents, sponsored and supervised by leading intellectuals. Part of the overall mission was to make comparisons between British and Chinese science and technology in the interest of advancing the goals of the British Empire. To the embassy, British superiority was never seriously questioned, and that opinion is overtly stated in the written commentary on virtually any aspect of Chinese civilization. The artwork presented a more nuanced and positive picture. The conflicting messages led to mixed feelings about China among British elites, but did nothing to stem passionate interest in China among the broader public and among artists in particular. Many British artists appropriated the motifs, vocabularies, and styles of the embassy’s imagery, which helped to embed Chinese sensibilities in British culture. This chain reaction led to a dynamic cross-cultural intercourse between China and the West in the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries. The images of China by Alexander were not only welcomed by general readers who were curious about distant countries, but they also attracted the interest of British royalty and aristocrats. The British Library has an album of Chinese images from the Royal Collection in 1844 which was obtained by King George III from the Macartney Embassy. This album contains maps, topographical charts, and other images created by Alexander, Barrow, and Parish. Later, King George IV reacquired a small portion of the gifts from the Qianlong emperor after they were sold at auction as part of Queen Charlotte’s estate after her death in 1818.30 The embassy’s images of China influenced the interior decoration of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, whose design and construction spanned from 1802 to 1823. The future King George IV, who commissioned the building, had a particular taste for oriental art owing to the influence of female members of his family, Queen Charlotte, and his sisters Charlotte (the Princess Royal), Elizabeth and Augusta. He was also very likely familiar with the impressive collection of porcelains that his mother and sisters inherited from Queen Mary II at Hampton Court. The Green Closet at the 28

Collin (2014, p. 47). Ibid. 30 See Royal Collection Trust, online source, see reference. 29

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Fig. 8.1 Image of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton (photo taken by Shanshan Chen, 2016)

Frogmore House in Windsor Great Park shows some of the objects given by the Qianlong emperor as gifts on the Macartney Embassy to China. George IV also developed a fondness for French Chinoiserie design and oriental fantasies (Fig. 8.1). Henry Holland renovated the farm house leased by the young prince into the Marine Pavilion in a Neoclassical style. While the architect John Nash completed the Indian exterior between 1815 and 1823, Frederick Crace and Robert Jones created the Chinese design in the interior of the pavilion.31 The actual painting was carried out by Lambelet from 1818 to 1822, and the detailed motif of the architecture and figures selected from Alexander’s work may have been provided by the painter Edward Fox.32 In decorating the interior of the pavilion, Crace and Jones also borrowed some major motifs from Alexander. On the windows along the staircase, the stained glass shows a Chinese dramatic actor flanked by two Chinese women. The actor was developed from Alexander’s print in Costume of China (Fig. 8.2). The women were based on scenes from the Peking opera that the embassy was frequently invited to watch by the imperial court and officials. The splendid costume and the exaggerated posture of the actor clearly captured Crace’s imagination.

31 32

Chu and Ding (2015, p. 233). Legouix (1980, p. 16).

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Fig. 8.2 Image of a comedian (reproduced from Costume of China), 1805, aquatint. Image courtesy of Wellcome Library, London

The pavilion’s music room was decorated with large wall paintings in the Chinoiserie style. The use of yellow and gold on a red background and the pavilion-like architecture were derived from a watercolor by Alexander and a later print, South Gate of the City Dinghai33 (Fig. 8.3). The figure standing on the rocks on the left side is a faithful copy from Alexander’s The Chinese Purveyor in The Costume of China. These buildings and figures were 33

For the influence of Alexander’s works on the interior decoration of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, see Alexander Loske.

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Fig. 8.3 William Alexander, Image of a city gate, 1793, pen and ink on paper. Image courtesy of the British Library, London

represented within a whimsical environment including Chinese pavilions, fountains, stands of bamboo, and exotic birds. The wall paintings in the banquet room show court ladies with children reflecting Alexander’s painting showing the pleasant daily life of high-echelon women. Although the interior decoration of the palace is in the fanciful Chinioserie style, Greg Thomas argues that the design “was capable of generating serious and meaningful cultural dialogue with China and Chinese culture,”34 He proposes that this aesthetic system was not “an imperial or Orientalist denigration of an inferior other; and it was rather a fundamentally dialogical engagement with a civilization still considered equal to Europe’s.”35 The historic meeting between the British embassy and the Qianlong emperor began a negotiation between two relatively equal empires. Alexander’s images offered British audiences their first view of the real China as opposed to the second-hand viewpoint of the Jesuits. By circulating the images without the biased judgements of written commentary, people could experience Chinese culture in a positive and artistically appealing way. The artists, therefore, provided more distinctive and open-minded perspectives than the verbal

34 35

Chu and Ding (2015, p. 233). Ibid. (2015, p. 234).

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commentators. Art played an instrumental role in shaping British perceptions of China. Appropriating Alexander’s images enabled designers to create a different version of Chinoiserie than the existing French Rococo style. As the patron of the Royal Pavilion, George IV sought to emulate the splendor and grandeur of Qing court culture without falling back on derivative French precedents. Blakley has argued that the chinoiserie interiors of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton are “complex and highly codified works of art within a proto-Orientalist and Romantic paradigm.”36 Unlike earlier Rococo chinoiserie, she proposes that the interior designs “exemplify the simultaneous anxiety that Britain felt towards a once-great rival empire and the imperial impulse it felt towards a politically-weakened place which crown and capitalism wished to colonize.”37 Faced with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, China represented opportunities for cultural expansion beyond the age-old European conflicts. “For George IV the allure of Chinese civilization had much to do with it capacity to provide a model of a stable escapist world, where everything could be sumptuous, colorful, tinged with magic, and best of all, different from familiar reality.”38 The Chinoiserie design reflected George IV’s eagerness for new horizons of power and influence.

8.3 Proto-Orientalism: Thomas Allom’s “China Illustrated” One of the most appealing visually-oriented books influenced by the embassy publications from the mid-nineteenth century is The Chinese Empire Illustrated published by Thomas Allom, the English architect, artist, and topographer, and G. N. Wright, the Irish clergyman. The book was well-known for its 75 steel engravings that depict the life and daily activities of the Chinese. Thomas Allom’s China, in a Series of Views, Displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits, of That Ancient Empire was a four-volume series that was first published in London and Paris between 1843 and 1847, accompanied by texts written by the Protestant clergyman George Newenham Wright. Its second edition, entitled The Chinese Empire: Historical and Descriptive, Illustrating the Manners and Customs of the Chinese, consolidates the four volumes into two, and was published in London and New York City between 1858 and 1859.39 Born in Lambeth in 1804, Allom studied church design with Francis Goodwin in his early years. He continued his architectural studies in 1828 at the Royal Academy Schools in London. During the 1820s and 30s, he traveled in England and Scotland where he continued painting while also teaching himself topographic illustration. In 1828, Allom began his fifteen-year collaboration with Fisher Son & Co. to illustrate 36

Blakley (2018, p. 358). Ibid. (2018, p. 152). 38 Ibid. (2018, p. 158). 39 Blakeley (2018, pp. 99–110). 37

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Asian travel books, and the company then sent him to Turkey where he produced a great number of illustrations, including those in Constantinople and the scenery of the seven churches of Asia Minor from 1838, and Character and costume in Turkey and Italy from 1840.40 It is unclear whether he traveled to China or not since the documents related to his stay in Constantinople no longer exist.41 Although some sources suggest that he visited China, his paintings in this vein drew mainly on the work of other artists, particularly Alexander. Allom had also studied some Chinese art objects in his contact with George Thomas Staunton. In the preface to their 1843 volume, Wright comments: ...acknowledgment is also due to Sir George Staunton, Bart., for permission to copy several interesting subjects from his beautiful collection of Chinese Drawings by native artists.42

Sir George Thomas Staunton was the son of Sir George Leonard Staunton who was a Macartney Embassy member and wrote the official account. The younger Staunton also took part in the journey as a page. In 1816, he was appointed second commissioner on the Amherst embassy to China. During his twenty-year stay in China, Staunton collected a great number of books, drawings, and objects, which he donated to the Royal Asiatic Society. Allom must have gained access to Staunton’s collection and used them as sources. He also borrowed many pictorial motifs from Alexander, and recomposed them to suit his own understanding of Chinese society and its people.43 The influence of Alexander’s works on Allom’s is evident in three areas: Allom borrowed several motifs, he repurposed images, and he outright copied works. In appropriating Alexander’s motifs and imagery, Allom reinforced a number of stereotypes, while providing his own insights on the increasingly negative perceptions of China. The publication came out after the Opium War in which the British attitudes towards China experienced a sharp shift due to the military weakness of the Qing empire. Motifs that Allow borrowed from Alexander include Chinese punishment, irrigation, and rituals, topics that were already familiar to many British viewers through embassy publications. One of Allom’s images depicts a scene in which officials implemented punishment on several criminals (Fig. 8.4). A man with a miserable expression on his face is seen lying on the ground, being beaten with a bamboo pole while other criminals beg for forgiveness. It is clear that the image is based Alexander’s representation of the same subject because the posture of the criminal is very similar. However, Allom adds details such as the official holding the next criminal to be punished by the collar and a spectator covering his face in horror that highlight the cruelty of the beatings and the backwardness of Chinese society. Another Allom work shows a barge passing through a sluice that reveals the artist’s familiarity with illustrations by Alexander and Parish. In Alexander’s image, 40

For the biography of Thomas Allom, see Lee, online source. Ibid. 42 Allom (1843). 43 Blakeley (2018, pp. 100–102). 41

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Fig. 8.4 Punishment of Bamboo (reproduced from The Chinese Empire Illustrated), 1858–1859, engraving. Image courtesy of Boston College

the barge is seen at the top of a ramp getting ready to slide down. By contrast, Allom depicts the barge in the process sliding down into the canal (Fig. 8.5). He seeks to pull the viewer’s gaze closer to the scene with a detailed and enlarged depiction of the barge and the sluice, although he copies the surrounding environment of houses and pavilions from Alexander. Allom’s accompanying text comments: “Civilised Europe may smile at this awkward contrivance, and at that obstinate attachment to ancient usages, which influences the government in retaining so laborious a process, rather than substitute our simple locks.”44 He clearly views China as a culture that has remained stagnant in contrast to the progress of European civilization. Allom’s direct copies of Alexander’s images include military subjects, such as the Manchu soldier, the tiger guard, and the archer. His appropriation of Alexander’s works reveals the major influence of the Macartney Embassy on China-related art in Britain. The publications of the embassy reached a wide audience in Britain, enabling people to view China through a more objective lens than in the past. The scientifically accurate and artistically appealing images produced by the embassy offered a direct channel to obtain information about this distant country. Works by Alexander’ testify to the rich store of knowledge the embassy obtained during their journey.

44

Allom (1858–1859, p. 79).

References

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Fig. 8.5 Junks passing on anchored plan on the imperial canal (reproduced from The Chinese Empire Illustrated), 1858–1859, engraving. Image courtesy of Boston College

After the Macartney Embassy, China was gradually incorporated into the British global knowledge system. In contrast to the negative commentary in many of the embassy’s accounts that portray China as a backward and stagnant country, the visual images offer clearer and more direct representation. The artists’ use of picturesque techniques helped to make China more appealing and undercut negative views among British intellectuals. Somewhat mixed views continued until the Opium Wars (1839–42) that totally transformed British perceptions of China as a backward, corrupt, passive, and feminine nation. Art, science, and imperial ideology all played a prominent role in representing and visualizing knowledge of China in the West.

References Alexander, William. 1805. The Costume of China: Illustrated in Forty-Eight Coloured Engravings. London: Published by William Miller, Albemarle Street. Allom, Thomas. 1843. China, in a Series of Views: Displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits, of that Ancient Empire. Fisher, Son & Co., Newgate Street, London, Rue St. Honore, Paris.

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Allom, Thomas. 1858–1859. The Chinese Empire: Historical and Descriptive, Illustrating the Manners and Customs of the Chinese. London: The London Printing and Publishing Company, Limited. Blakley, Kara Lindsey. 2018. From Diplomacy to Diffusion: The Macartney Mission and Its Impact on the understanding of Chinese Art, Aesthetics, and Culture in Great Britain, 1793–1859. Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Melbourne. Brewer, John. 2013. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Routledge. Chan, Iris. The introduction of George Staunton’s official account at HKU. https://lib.hku.hk/sites/ all/files/files/hkspc/focusJun2003_authentic.pdf. Accessed on February 22, 2022. Cheng, Cunjie. 2008. The Study of Chinese tongcao Export Watercolors. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Press. Collins, Logan P. 2014. British Periodical Representations of China: 1793–1830. Master of Arts thesis submitted to the University of Houston. Harris, Bob. 2006. Print culture. In A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. H. T. Dickinson. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers: 283–293. http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/section-12. Accessed on February 22, 2022. Joseph Banks’ paper, the archive at the State Library of New South Wales. Lee. The Chinese empire illustrated by Thomas Allom (C1858). See https://blogs.adelaide.edu. au/special-collections/2017/05/01/the-chinese-empire-illustrated-by-thomas-allom-c1858/. Accessed on February 19, 2022. Legouix, Susan. 1980. Image of China: William Alexander. London: Jupiter Books Publishers. Loske, Alexander. Shaping an Image of China in the West: William Alexander (1767–1816). https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2016/09/01/shaping-an-image-of-china-in-the-westwilliam-alexander-1767-1816/. Accessed on February 19, 2022. Ming, Wilson, and Zhiwei Liu, eds. 2003. Souvenir from Canton: Chinese Export Paintings from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Press. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Vol. 1. January 4, 1823a. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Vol. 2. June 14, 1823b. Chu, Petra ten-Doesschate and Ding, Ning eds. 2015. Qing Encounters: Artistic Exchanges Between China and the West. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute. Royal Collection Trust. The Macartney Embassy: gifts exchanged between George III and the Qianlong Emperor. https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/themes/trails/the-macartney-emb assy-gifts-exchanged-between-george-iii-and-the-qianlong. Accessed on February 22, 2022. Savil, Merilyn. 2011. Empiricism, Enlightenment and Aesthetics: Engravings from the Endeavour Voyages, 1668–1771. Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Auckland. Zhu, Wenqi. 2021. Negotiating Art and Commerce in William Alexander’s Illustrated Books on China. Master of Art thesis submitted to the University of Hong Kong.

Conclusion

The Macartney Embassy of 1793 marked a transition in European perceptions of China. The Jesuits’ generalized accounts of a refined and learned people gave way to a more nuanced and detailed picture grounded in empirical observation. Spurred by the development of science in Britain and the age of exploration, British intellectuals sought to acquire deeper understanding of China. Embassy members lifted the veil of mystery that still surrounded China by creating images that accurately recorded the artifacts and people they encountered. These images, along with written accounts, attempted to use scientific standards to record, measure, evaluate, and rank Chinese civilization. The information and images they brought back began a new era in relations between China and the West. The embassy was part of a surge in exploration that sought to analyze and evaluate Chinese landscapes, people, culture, and technology using a number of disciplines that emerged during the period. Artists and draughtsmen recorded the embassy’s findings in images that became first-hand sources of knowledge about China. When the images were brought back to Britain, they were modified to conform to Picturesque aesthetic formulas to make them more familiar and appealing to audiences. The combination of objectivity and embellishment expresses the two competing goals of British expeditions, the quest for scientific knowledge and imperial expansion for global political and economic gains. China presented a unique opportunity on both fronts. In contrast to the Middle Eastern cultures described in Said’s Orientalism, China was a vast empire with a sophisticated and complex culture. This does not mean that Britain considered China its equal. The embassy’s written accounts tended to disparage China as a stagnant civilization according to British standards. The most important contributions of the embassy, however, were visual records that did more than anything else to influence the subsequent understanding and interpretation of China. Perceptions of China as a mysterious and exotic land gave way to a vital culture sharing many elements of British culture. Science played a central role in almost every aspect of the embassy’s mission and records. The stated purpose of the embassy was to establish cultural and economic

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 S. Chen, Art, Science, and Diplomacy: A Study of the Visual Images of the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1160-8

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ties with China and the exchange of scientific information was a long-standing way to open doors. Although the Qing imperial court were not particularly impressed with Britain’s gifts, this process did serve as an impetus for the embassy’s second major goal: to observe Chinese culture and technology. The most valuable means for the embassy to convey scientific information to British audiences was through detailed visual records. Artists, scientists, engineers, and technicians collaborated to develop images based on empirical observation, accurate depiction and precise measurement. As with all aspects of the embassy’s output, the art served a dual purpose, to convey neutral scientific information and to serve the commercial and political ideological aims of the British empire. A third less stated purpose was simply to create works of art that would appeal to the British public. To produce the final images, embassy artists worked with publishers to transform the original sketches to more finished watercolors and engravings. In doing so, they added elements to enhance the compositions and render them in a more familiar artistic sensibility. The various production stages embody the different approaches and purposes of the creators. In most cases, the artists and scientists created original sketches that were free of ideology, given their purpose of recording phenomena using scientific methods. These works were either composed onsite or based on accurate measurement and data. The empirical information from these images served as sources for artists, engravers, and publishers, as well as scientific elites. The later stages of the process were designed to heighten the appeal of the source imagery for broader audiences. For example, in George Staunton’s account, various people collaborated to recreate the primary images in engravings in the Picturesque aesthetic, a quality which some of Alexander’s finished watercolors already embodied. The result was a new form of art based on embassy’s China imagery with a distinct style. The sometimes contradictory relationship between text and image reflected ambivalent attitudes toward China among the embassy members. The text passages sometimes provided objective scientific information that reinforced and expanded on the images. In many cases, however, the images contradicted the text by relaying the biased views of Staunton, Barrow, and other writers that placed British culture far above that of China. The artists tended to convey different, generally more positive views in their images. The mixed messages in the embassy’s publications led to British attitudes towards China becoming divided and ambivalent. Diplomats and politicians had a vested interest in deeming China a stagnant, closed, and backward empire, whereas other intellectual elites understood that China had a lot to offer the West, in terms of science, technology and art. The Macartney Embassy was typical of British exploratory expeditions in the eighteenth century in emphasizing scientific investigation while seeking trading opportunities. However, it was unique in one important respect. Many earlier expeditions such as Cook’s South Pacific voyages saw human societies as part of the natural history of a region rather than as cultures meriting mutual respect. By contrast, China was an equally expanding empire that shared many similarities with the British empire. In spite of some of its negative views, the embassy emphasized the sophistication of Chinese civilization and its people, and represented them as an equal or a competitor

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to be taken seriously. A key purpose of the embassy’s writings and images was to weigh the relative power of the two competing empires. However, the embassy publications were perceived and used by different audiences, the visual records played an essential role in the construction of the image of China in Britain and Europe. They served as a pivot point between the unreserved admiration for Chinese civilization from early encounters to the ultimate dismissal of China after the Opium Wars. A contemptuous attitude toward China is already evident in verbal commentary from the Macartney Embassy and the later Amherst Embassy. The images present a more objective and nuanced perspective that enabled Western audiences to view China on its own terms rather than merely as a foil for British superiority. Although the idea of British superiority eventually won out, the images provided a subtle and long-lasting undercurrent carrying the strengths of Chinese civilization to Western audiences.