Overview of Huangchao Liqi Tushi

Chapter 1 HCLQTS, the origin and the Production Process

Before analysing the reception of the HCLQTS and Harris set in the Qing court back to the 18th century, it is important to have an overview of this publication. As the name suggests, Huangchao Liqi Tushi, the Illustrations of Imperial Ritual Paraphernalia, is a publication of Qing imperial regulations and codes. Although the actual content may vary slightly, scholars notice its connection to the printed version. Therefore, the general content of the HCLQTS can be expected to be based on the printed version. Containing both explanative texts and corresponding depictions of objects, a complete set of HCLQTS consists of six sections: jiqi, the Ritual Vessels, yiqi or The Scientific Device, guanfu or the Costumes and Accessories, yueqi or the Musical Instruments, lubu or the Insignia and wubei or the Arms and Armours. In each section, objects will be illustrated with corresponding explanative texts. In most of the cases, there will be a depiction of an object with the explanative texts on the other side. Both are written or painted on a rectangular honey-coloured silk plate made of two rectangular square page leaves.(Fig 1-1) Sometimes, when a type of object has multiple illustrations, two illustrations will be painted side by side and a long inscription will occupy another whole folio. (Fig 1-2; 1-3) This corresponds to the description from the inscription written by the officials in charge of reviewing that ‘(the illustrations and texts for each object) should list the measurements, material, the standard form and iconography as well as the standard in amount and relevant order of usage in detail.’ The Harris set consists of 290 pages of HCLQTS, 61 of them were sent to the Royal Scottish Museum (now National Museum of Scotland, hereafter NMS) and 61 to Dublin Museum of Arts and Sciences (now National Museum of Ireland, hereafter NMI), rest of them were kept in the South Kensington Museum (now Victorian & Albert Museum, or V&A). Unfortunately, I have not been able to access the portion kept in the NMI, but based on the V&A and NMS portions, together with the descriptions of objects from the NMI, it is clear that the Harris sets are mainly the pages from the section 3, guanfu, the Costumes and Accessories, with only a small number of scattered pages from yueqi the Musical Instruments, Section 5, lubu, the Insignia and Section 6, wubei, the Arms and Armours. For this reason, the Harris set was entitled ‘the imperial wardrobe’ when it was acquired at the very beginning. Obviously, the Harris set is not the only portion of the painted version of HCLQTS. Only in the V&A additional pages were acquired in 1900, 1904 and 1953. Take a deeper dive into Corporate Governance and Firm Performance with our additional resources.

In addition, there is another small portion were kept in the British Library. Although never publically published, there is also set were kept in the Palace Museum Beijing and clues be found in Liu`s citation as well as its online database. In addition, Wilson mentioned a version in smaller size from the Imperial Summer Residence in Chengde once kept in the History Museum of China. Moreover, the Mactaggart Collection of the University Of Alberta Museums also has an incomplete portion. Unfortunately, neither could the portions in the V&A, the British Library or the Mactaggart Collection formed a complete section, nor can we prove that they were from a same set with provenance support even though I would strongly agree on this opinion. A detailed discussion will be given later. Considering these issues, it is not quite possible to clarify the issues regarding the production, reception and even the provenance of the different sets of HCLQTS or more specifically the Harris set in the past. Until the recent years, benefited from the newly discovered materials, especially the records of the Zaobanchu Archives of the Qing Imperial House Hold Department (hereafter Zaobanchu Archives), one may reconstruct the production, usage and identify of the HCLQTS partly. Nevertheless, it is possible to update and correct some of the suggestions and speculations made in the past studies. Arguments in this chapter will be divided into three parts. In part one, available Qing archives referenced to the production of HCLQTS, including both the printed and painted version will be reviewed to reconstruct how the whole HCLQTS production project progressed. The second part will try to argue the factors and outcomes of this project and analyse the reception of HCLQTS in the Qing context. Finally, based on the discoveries in the part one and two, this part will combine the Qing archives and the provenance marks found at the back of the pages to argue the possibilities of restoring the original order of the pages from the Harris set.

Production overview

How the HCLQTS were produced is always a key argument to the studies on it and scholars provide several suggestions to this question. As early as 1959 Medley found the connection between the painted and the printed version and noticed the Qianlong`s preface signed ‘the summer of the 1759’. However, she argues that the date is not reliable because the edict on musical instruments appeared later in 1760, a year later than its ‘completion’. Furthermore, she suggests that the printed version published in 1766 are based on the painted version, and was later collected in the Siku Quanshu in 1796 in 28 juan or volumes, extended from the original 18 volumes. In comparison, Liu`s study in 2004 analyses the HCLQTS from another angle and have some different suggestions. Instead of analysing the painted version, Liu focused merely on the printed version and tried to trace the origin of the HCLQTS from the Qing archival materials. She insists that the HCLQTS was finished by the summer of 1759. Further she argues that four years after the completion in 1759, the HCLQTS was reviewed for the first round with some additions and in the 31st year of Qianlong (1766), a printed version was commissioned and produced in Wuying palace (武英殿), the imperial institution for publishing in Qianlong period. After that, in the 38th year of Qianlong (1773), the printed version was collected in the History section of the Siku Quanshu, the Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature (hereafter SKQS). Interestingly, she did not provide references to the perception regarding where these dates are from. The 31st year of Qianlong is probably from the inscription of the officials who oversaw the editing works, which dated the 5th July of the 31st year of Qianlong (1766) while it is not known why she would claim that a first round of edition was complete in 1763. Despite these, she also suggests that the earliest evidence of producing or at least planning of producing the HCLQTS can be traced back to the 15th year of Qianlong (1750). Accordingly, Qianlong emperor claimed that, “as the ritual vessels suggest, (the ritual) continues for generations and will not change. The officials should follow this tradition, and a relevant instruction should thus have a detailed explanations and images. I, therefore ordered to commission such a book with both illustrations and texts based on the honour guard for the most formal ceremonies…”. Even though divergent in finishing date, they both agree on the Wuyingdian printed version were made in the 31st year of Qianlong (AD 1766) and they both connecting the HCLQTS to the event of re-configuration of the lubu, or the ritual and order for honour guard for the ceremonies.

The issue of the ‘24th year of Qianlong’ was seemingly solved by an ‘unambiguous’ noted in Wilson`s essay also published in the 2004. Accordingly, a document dated 25th year of Qianlong notes that one set of colour illustrations were delivered to Nanxun Palace and two sets of ink illustrations were delivered to the Wuying Palace. As the note suggests, two versions were finished at the same time. Even though Wilson found it strange, she tended to explain this as the freedom of the imperial power as the emperor could do what he wanted. At this point, evidences tend to support more Liu`s idea while it does not solve Medley`s question on the musical instrument. Nor does this idea match the records in the Zaobanchu Archives. For example, there is no record noting the production of HCLQTS in the archives of 24th year while records can be found in both 23rd and 25th year. Specifically, after the 25th year, there are continuous records of the HCLQTS which make it very confusing. In order to clarify these issues, I started to survey the Zaobanchu Archives of the key years mentioned above, namely the 15th, the24th, the 31st and the 38th year. The records relevant to the HCLQTS can be found potentially ranging from the 13th year till the 42th year. It is worth noting that not all records note the full title of the HCLQTS. In fact, the full name appeared very rarely and in most of the cases, the abbreviated term, liqi tu, or the Illustration of the Ceremonial Objects, and the titles of the sections, such as jiqi tu, the Illustration of Ritual Vessels, were pointed much more frequently. Occasionally, the term was not mentioned as standard which therefore makes it hard to distinguish the relevance of some of the records. In order to best avoid misunderstandings, especially considering some different writings in the archives may refer to a similar English translation, a list of most translations of the most frequently used terms will be given and any term other than this suggests a different writing and need to be more carefully examined. In the Zaobanchu case, the section titles were most frequently used although sometimes minor differences may also apply. For the six sections, the archive will normally note as jiqi tu (祭器图), the Illustrations of the Ritual Vessels; yiqi tu（仪器图）, the Illustrations of the Devices; guanfu tu（冠服图）, the Illustrations of the Costumes; yueqi tu the Illustrations of the Musical Instruments; lubu tu（卤簿图）, the Illustrations of the Insignia; and wubei tu (武备图) , the Illustrations of the Arms and Armours. Specifically, both tu (图) and hua（画） in the archive refer paintings or illustrations alternatively while, the tu is much more frequently used probably because the Huangchao liqi Tushi is titled as a tushi (图式), or literally an illustrated schema.

Among the Zaobanchu Archives records, relevant notes can be found from the workshops including the Painting Academy (画院处), The Painting Workshop (画作) Ruyi guan Studio (如意馆), Cloisonné Workshop珐琅作, the Imperial Factory of Textile in Suzhou (苏州织造)，the Mounting and Boxing Workshop（匣裱做）the Yearly Registers（记事录）Wood Workshop（广木作）etc. ranging from the 13th year of Qianlong (AD 1748) to the 42th year. The earliest record directly related to the HCLQTS can be traced back to the 15th year of Qianlong (AD 1750) where ‘A hundred and seven pages of Illustrations of the Costumes of the Emperor (皇上冠服图)’ were mentioned. Although there is no direct mention of ‘Huangchao Liqi Tushi’, the term ‘Illustrations of Costumes of the Emperor’(皇上冠服图) , which matched the section title used in the printed version as well as a large quantity of illustrations, makes it evident. Records appeared in the following year but suddenly stopped for several years. Interestingly, there are no records related to the HCLQTS between the 16th year and the 23rd year based on my survey of Zaobanchu Archives. Considering the years of continuous records appeared after the 23rd year (1758), it is very unlikely to agree that all relevant records are missing during the whole 8 years. Therefore, even it is possible that I missed one or two notes during the period, it is still safe to argue a gap of production, or at the doldrums at the very least, appeared during the period. The production project reached its peak in the 1760s. This is evident by a series of record found consecutively from the 26th year (1761) to 33rd year (1768) Every single year among the seven years, there are records found noting the production of the HCLQTS. After the 33rd year (1768), records appeared relatively less but it is even until the 42nd year (1777), there are still records relevant to the HCLQTS.

More importantly, several records provide essential information which not only helping in solving the issue of the 24th year, but also providing clues to unfold the whole production project. For example, a record dated 5th Nov 1767 (32nd year of Qianlong) tells the amount of completed and upcoming work with an estimate duration. Moreover, the record of 26th June 1771 (36th year) notes the packing format. Among them, the most exciting discovery is a note found in the 42nd year (1777). Accordingly, Qianlong emperor asked his officials to check whether a set commissioned for the Mukden Palace (in modern day Shengyang city) sent and update the conditions for the all remaining sets. From the reply, a total of five sets of Huangchao Liqi Tushi were mentioned: the earliest set had been finished in the 16th year and was kept in the Ningshou Palace (宁寿宫) in the Forbidden City, and in 29th year, 33rd year, 37th year and 42nd year, sets had been painted and were held in the Yuanming Yuan, Summer Residence Chengde（承德避暑山庄）, Qianqing Palace（乾清宫） in Forbidden City and finally a set was to be sent to Shengjing(盛京), thus should be the Mukden Palace in modern day Shengyang, by the year of report. In addition to this record, the xubian and the mulu provide further information of the Chengde set and the Qianqing Palace set, which is more than crucial for decoding the records noted in the Zaobanchu Archives. xubian was the additional edition of Qianlong`s catalogue of paintings and calligraphies in the Qing imperial collection and edition was finished in the 58th year of Qianlong (1793). In the xubian, a set of HCLQTS was recorded in the volume 3, under the category of “paintings and calligraphies by a collection of Works Done by Groups of Artists of the Present Dynasty” (benchao jijin shuhua 本朝集锦书画). HCLQTS is the first piece recorded under this section, noted as Huangchao Liqi Tu, 96 volume in the Qianqing palace. Interestingly, it is followed by six albums of battle paintings, the four scrolls edition of the Portraits of Periodical Offering(职贡图) and the scroll of the Emperor`s Honour Guard(yuding dajia lubu tu 御定大驾卤簿图). The beginning of the record, a general description of the format is given. ‘Painted on silk, the illustrations are on the right and the texts are on the left, which is for explanation to the corresponding illustration. If there are two illustrations, then there will be a whole folio of two illustrations and another folio for the text.’ After this, following Qianlong`s preface, table of contents is given and the title of the first and the last object of each volume is listed with page number of the volume. At the end, a 18-volume printed version is mentioned and three imperial seals, the Wu fu wu dai tang gu xi tian zi bao (The Hall of Five Happiness and Five Generations)，Ba zheng mao die zhi bao（The Seal of an Octogenarian） and Qianlong yulan zhi bao (Viewed by His Majestry Qianlong) are listed. The mulu records the information about the Chengde set. It is a catalogue made during the early 20th century. When the Republican government took the authority after the 1911, except some kept in the Forbidden city by the former emperor Puyi, properties once belonged to the Qing imperial court were transferred to the museum and catalogued. Probably for this reason, the descriptions here are more clear that, despite the content of the volume, the number of pages in each volume including the blank page were specifically mentioned.

Although the short descriptions from the two records could not help too much in decoding the actual content of each page, the size and format mentioned there can be compared to the Zaobanchu Archives. There are several records noting the two types of size, the Large Size(大样) and the Small Size（小样）of the HCLQTS while very few of them giving the actual dimensions. In a record dated 27th Oct of the 23rd year(1758 ), additional copies of a volume of Ritual Vessels in the same size of the modelled copy and a copy of Large Size(大样) were commissioned. Specifically, the dimension of the Large Size was also given as ‘1 chi 3 cun 3 fen high and 1 chi 2 cun 8 fen wide’ Comparing this to the Qianqing Palace set recorded in the xubian, which is of 1 chi 3 cun high and 2 chi 5 cun 3 fen wide, the height is matching and the width is doubled. This is probably because the record in Zaobanchu Archives notes the size of a single leaf while the xubian reads a page as a folded page leaves. Therefore, it is safe to claim this set is one of the Large Size sets the Chengde set, which is of 9 cun high 9 cun 7 fen, thus should be the Small Size set.

The Starting point of the Project

There is yet to be a record found noting the order from the Qianlong emperor marking the starting point of the HCLQTS. The earliest capture of the full title is the preface of Qianlong dated the summer of the 24th year (1759) and the term was not mentioned by the Zaobanchu Archives until the 29th year (1764). In comparison, the starting point of the project is very early, which may be traced back to at least the 15th year of his reign (1750). As Liu notes, the commission of the HCLQTS is probably the outcome of the changing of state ritual. As she argues, in the 12th year (1747), Qianlong emperor changed the material of the ritual vessels. Instead of using the bronze vessels, a standard made by his father, the Yongzheng emperor, Qianlong emperor ordered to recall the ancient tradition for the ritual vessels. In the following years, the emperor also reformed the lubu, or the regulation, standards and relevant decorative order of the guard of honour. Historically, the guard of honour can be distinguished into three levels for different purposes or levels of importance. Here the emperor merged the three into one entirety titled, dajia lubu, or the Greatest Guard of Honour with additional corresponding use of animals, objects and accessories. In the 15th year (1750), he formally claimed that due to the importance of the ritual and the correct order of the corresponding ritual vessels, a detailed illustrative book with both the illustrations of objects and explanatory texts should be made based on the existing the dajia lubu. It is not very certain what the dajia lubu here refers to since a scroll bared a same title were commissioned just two years ago and the term also means the regulation and ritual itself.

But from the description, this illustrative book with textual explanation of corresponding ritual is very much referencing the format of the HCLQTS. Liu`s argument is further confirmed by the Zaobanchu Archives. As mentioned above, the earliest record securely related to the HCLQTS is dated the 15th year (AD 1750). Accordingly, ‘A hundred and seven pages of Illustrations of the Costumes of the Emperor (皇上冠服图) were received and (the emperor) asked to send them to the Chun Yu Shu He Painting Academy(春宇舒和) and asked two artists to paint this in detail.’ Clearly, this record is not a note of starting the project but an updating report during the process. Based on Liu`s suggestion above, the preparation for HCLQTS can be traced back to the 12th and 13th year thus some records of the 13th year (AD 1748), although have no indication of HCLQTS, is probably worth noting. Accordingly, Wang Youdun was pointed to ‘present an Album of Ritual Vessel (祭器图册页) with 12 pieces of Ritual Vessels written’ to the court artists Shenyuan and Jinkun to paint the standard model for emperor to check. After being check and agreed by the Qianlong emperor, wooden models were later made and sent to the relevant workshops for the models of actual ritual vessel under the supervision of the Prince Zhuang. On 13th November of the same year, it is noted that a volume of Ceremonial Implement（仪仗册）were handed to Wang Youdun by the eunuch from Maoqin Palace for the court artist Jin Kun to draft the painting of lubu dajia. These is not even a single word pointing anything connection between these books and the HCLQTS from these records while the content of the books hinted by the description as well as the people involved, it is seemingly reasonable to investigate a hidden connection behind. There is no further clue explaining the content of the Album of Ritual Vessel and the number of objects is clearly not matching any parts of the HCLQTS while, considering the album was given to the court artists for drafting, it supposes to have very detailed description of materials and form, and very likely, with illustrations. Similarly, we cannot know the content of this book of Ceremonial Implement while since this book was handed specifically to the artist drafting the painting, it probably also has not only the textual description but also illustrations. In addition, in both records, Wang Youdun is pointed and he is later one of the key figure responsible the production of the HCLQTS. Also, the Prince Zhuang, who is mentioned in the production of these ritual objects, is later the chef editor and administrator of the HCLQTS project according to the preface of the HCLQTS. More importantly, the Maoqin palace mentioned above, is also responsible for writing the text of the HCLQTS. Therefore, even though these books mentioned above are not directly related to the HCLQTS, it is safe to argue that, at the very least, these kind of books, which is very likely to be illustrated ones, probably bares the foundation of the HCLQTS.

The issue of the 24th year

Despite the unclear starting point of the project, the finishing date of the HCLQTS also remained unclear. As mentioned above, most of the studies tend to suggest that the HCLQTS was finished in the 24th year. Specifically, the archive provided by Wilson, dated the 25th year, almost makes this statement solid. However, after reviewing the Zaobanchu Archives, this claim becomes very confusing. There is no any record related to the HCLQTS in the archives of the 24th year. Instead, from a note of the 25th year, it is mentioned that 204 pages of lubu quantu (either read as an overall illustration of lubu; or all the illustrations of lubu) and the same amount of texts were received in the November of the 24th year, and were presented and reviewed by the emperor in the February of the 25th year. If it is agreed that a set was completed in the 24th year, it is very unlikely to have the production record of a section in such a late time of the year and further reviewed by the emperor in the following year. Then, either could these pages were not for the so-believed set finished in the 24th year but for further production, which is possible, or could it be a sign suggesting that the set was not completed by the time. In addition, the Zaobanchu Archives after the 25th year indicate that the production did not stop but continued in the following decades. Starting from the 25th year, relevant records appeared almost every year till the 42nd year, nearly two decades in total. Among them, the record of the 32nd year (AD 1767) is surprising. From the record of the Painting Academy (画院处) of the 5th November, Qianlong asked to update the progress of the project and it was replied that: ‘There are in total 13,918 units of the added and updated work in the six sections of the HCLQTS. For six painters, it will take 2,355 days, or six and a half year to complete. If we hire 6 additional painters from outside (the Painting Academy or the court ), it will take three years and three month to complete.’ Although it is not possible to know if a unit of work was equivalent to a page, it is a very solid evidence showing that , till the 32nd year, there are still a huge amount of work to be done, which also confirms that the production of HCLQTS is a very largeproject probably beyond the previous expectation.

Knowing the fact that the project did not finish in the 24th year (1759), could it be possible that the first set rather than the whole project was completed in that year? After reviewing the known archival materials, this suggestion is also problematic. Liu, the main supporter of the 24th year (1759) idea, argues that the commission of the HCLQTS was a part of a larger ritual reform in the Qianlong`s court. As she argues, the commission is based on the re-editing of the daqing huidian (Collected statutes of the Qing dynasty) which was finished the 23rd year and the commission of the daqing tongli (Collected Rituals of the Qing dynasty) which was finished in the 24th year (1759) and on two important textual sources for the Qing state ritual. This is further confirmed by the archival evidence provided by Wilson that a record noting a painted and two printed versions had been presented to the emperor in the 25th year (1760). These evidences make the 24th year idea seemingly reasonable while the Zaobanchu Archives shows something opposite. In the record dated 42nd year (1777) mentioned previously, Qianlong emperor asked to check the HCLQTS of the court and from the report had set the time held in the Ningshou palace of the Forbidden City to be painted in the 16th year (AD 1748). Also, it is very surprising to note that the following set after the 16th year was one of the Yuanming Yuan sets which had been painted in the 29th year while the 24th year was not mentioned at all. On the other hand, it is also very unlikely to have a set completed as early as the 16th year. As discussed previously, Liu suggests that the foundations of the HCLQTS are the changes on the ritual objects and the reform of the dajia lubu dated to be the 12th (1747) and the 13th year (1748) and it is till the 15th year (1750), Qianlong emperor formally claimed his intention of commissioning such work. In another word, the first set was, to the extreme, made in no more than two years. Also, from the editor`s inscription after Qianlong`s preface, the victories on the rebellions of Junggar banner and the Revolt of the Altishahr Khojas in 1758 and 1759 were noted as a part of the reason for the commission. If it is true, how could a set be completed years before the wars? To clarify this issue, it is important to review the materials relevant to the 16th year of Qianlong (1751). As mentioned above, it is until the 15th year (1750), only one year before the marked completion date, words directly referenced to the HCLQTS appeared on the records formally. In the record of year, only the Costumes section was mentioned. On the 7th February of the next year, Ruyi guan Studio reported that Prince Zhuang had ordered the official to send ‘eleven pages of Illustrations of the Ritual Vessel and Text’ to his Majesty for approval. In the same record ‘one page of the Jue vessel of the Ritual Vessel’ was also presented and after approval, the emperor ordered Wu Gui to guide the court artist Lu zhan, Dai hong to paint a copy and Zhang Ruocheng to write the text on the silk plate in 9 cun high 1 chi wide for an album (册页). From these words, no matter the numbers of pages and sections are seemingly incomplete. On the other hand, there is no record between the 16th year and the 24th year. Considering the continuous records found from the 23rd to at least the 33rd year, it is very unlikely to say the records during this gap were an accidental missing. Therefore, if not paused in the year 1751 for some reason, it is also no reasonable explanation for this gap. In addition, in the note dated 3rd September of the 16th year (1751), it is recorded that the Imperial Factory of Textile in Suzhou (苏州织造) was asked to follow the design from the Illustrations of the Costumes, which at least indicates the part for the Costumes were in use, thus may indicate that at least the section is complete.

A Hypothesis

If we assume the record of the 42nd year (1777) is correct and accurate, which is very likely since it is a report under the emperor`s request rather than a random report, I would suggest that the Ningshou palace set was not complete by the 16th year (1751). At least, it was not as complete as what we now understand of a set of HCLQTS which consisting all six sections. Comparing the records in the 23rd year and those in the 15th and 16th year, one may notice that only jiqi the Illustrations of the Ritual Vessels, guanfu Illustrations of the Costumes appeared in common while wubei the Illustrations of Arms and Armours and yueqi the Illustrations of Musical Instrument appeared only in the later records and yiqi, the Illustrations of Scientific Devices was not mentioned until the records of 25th year. This is also evident in Liu`s argument. As she noted, the commission of the HCLQTS was paralleled to the re-editing of the daqing huidian and the daqing tongli, which had been finished in the 23rd and the 24th year (AD 1758 and 1759). Specifically, Qianlong`s preface notes attest that he wanted the Arms and Armours to be added to the daqing huidian, if the earliest set had been finished nearly a decade before the re-editing of the daqing huidian, it would be very strange to have this sentence in the preface. In addition, adding the pages of Ritual Vessels in Jade was specifically mentioned in the 23rd year (1758) record, which might indicate two things: first, the section of Ritual Vessel was almost completed at the time and second, the jade material was not included in the earlier set. Moreover, despite of the updates of costumes of the inner court, the record of the 23rd year (1758) lists a lot of new added costumes including the costumes from the nobles to the lower ranked officials, from the males to the females were presented to the emperor for reviewing. From these evidences, it is very unlikely to have a set with all six sections by at least the 24th year. Based on these notions, it is thus possible to argue that the set said to have been finished in the 16th year of Qianlong (1751) consisted of only the section of Ritual Vessels except the jade ones, the Costumes of only the Emperor and probably the lubu.

Bearing this in mind then the record of the 23rd year may be understood in another way. The record notes ‘five pages of Ritual Vessels in jade, 24 pages of Arms and Armours, 103 pages of Musical Instruments together with 24 pages of Costumes of inner court in new type, 88 pages of Costumes of nobles, 90 pages of Costumes of officials in different ranks, 54 pages of Costumes of females in various ranks’ had been presented to the emperor. In reply, a copy of Large Size, with a specific indication of measurements was specifically commissioned, which means those presented pages are of the Small Size. In the note of the 16th year, that the officials were asked to produce an album by silk plate in 9 cun high and 1 chi wide (c.28.8cm x 32 cm), which is also matching the size of existing Chengde set. Therefore, it is very likely that the 16th year version was what is called the Small Size. Then, thinking that the pages commissioned in the 23rd year belongs to sections never appeared before and at a same size, these pages could probably be the pages of new portions commissioned to fill the most original and incomplete Ningshou palace set. With this hypothesis, it is possible to explain the issue of the idea that the HCLQTS was finished by the 24th year. So far, this issue here can be summarised into two questions: If a set was finished in the 24th year, why the record of the 42nd year showing a set would was completed far earlier while no mention of the 24th year at all. On the other hand, if the set was not finished by the 24th year, why there is a record noting a painted and two printed sets, consisting six sections in the 25th year`s record? Considering the existing evidences and the hypothesis, there are probably two speculations for the questions. For the first speculation, the updated new costumes, the jade ritual objects together with the three sections of the Devices, the Military Uniforms and Weapons and the Musical Instruments were added to what was finished by the 16th year, probably following the texts of the recently updated daqing huidian and newly finished daqing tongli. The extended set consisting of all six sections was then finished by the 24th year so the emperor had the preface dated on the summer of the year. Otherwise, the Qianlong`s preface written in the 24th year is not the mark of the completion but a mark of beginning. Having the 16th year set in use, Qianlong emperor started to either add and update the content to the original set, or having independent new albums or illustrated books in similar order, following recently updated daqing huidian and newly finished daqing tongli. Then, in the summer of the 24th year, he finally decided to transfer all the albums of this kind in to a comprehensive illustrative instruction of the Qing rituals. These speculations thus make those contrasting records reasonable. First of all, it explains the huge gap between the archives of the 16th year and the 23rd year. As for the record of the 42nd year, it is probably true the first set was finished in the 16th year when it was yet regarded as ‘Huangchao Liqi Tushi’ but illustrative instructions of relevant rituals. Only after the idea of HCLQTS appeared later, the missing sections were filled but from the archival notes, it was recorded as such because the earliest section was finished in the 16th year.

Further Productions

Based on the known materials, it is yet possible to verify the hypothesis above while the process of the whole project is generally clear. Based on a completed first set, probably finished by the 24th year as argued above, additional copies in both the Large Size and the Small Size were commissioned and their productions continued in the following decades for the regional court or palaces across the empire. There are six sets were mentioned directly in the archives. Based on the record of the 42nd year (1777), four more sets were commissioned and was held in the Yuanming Yuan, Summer Residence Chengde, Qianqing palace in Forbidden City and the Mukden Palace Shenyang. In addition, the record of the 35th year (1770) notes that two sets were sent to the regional palaces. Although the form of these two sets was not mentioned, considering they were collected in the reginal palaces, I tend to argue that they are both painted version rather than monochrome printed ones. As for the format, both the xubian and the mulu confirm that the painted version of the HCLQTS, no matter in the Large or the Small Size, contains 92 volumes. The image from the Palace Museum Beijing website gives a reference to the original wooden box. This is further evident by the record of 1771. Accordingly, 46 large boxes were commissioned for holding a total of 184 volumes of HCLQTS in the Large Size. Then, 46 boxes were made for 2 complete painted sets thus each wood box contains 2 volume. This result is further evidence by the Inventory Records of the Qianqing palace. Accordingly, 24 boxes which held 92 volumes of HCLQTS, were found. Besides, these records also prove that the 96 volumes recorded in the beginning of the xubian is probably a typo. Since I have not been able to access either the Chengde set or the Palace Museum set, it is not possible to calculate the amount of sets mentioned in total based on the sections and page numbers mentioned in the archives especially considering that multiple sets were probably produced at the same time. For example, the record of the 24th year notes that 204 pages of the illustration of Insignia and 204 pages of texts were presented to the emperor for approval. However, it is not possible to know if they were made for a singular set or for multiple sets and the record of the 32nd year clearly indicate the potential paralleled works was in process. For this reason, the analysis here only indicates some signs within the records which should to be reviewed with further evidences.

The Printed Version

Unlike the painted version, the production of the printed versions is relatively clear. Accordingly, the printed version was published in the 31st year of Qianlong, (AD 1766) and was collected by the Si Ku Quan Shu in the 38th year (AD 1773). The earliest note on the production of the printed version was mentioned in Wilson`s essay, which was mentioned previously. After that, two notes dated the 27th year (AD 1762) can be found in the China First Historical Archive by searching the liqi tu as key words. Although I have not been able to check the content of the archives in person, the two titles found from these databases dated 27th year (1762) suggest the edition and woodblock cutting work was in process at least in the year. The editing and adjustment of the content continued in the following years. According to a Zaobanchu Archives of the 29th year, the section of the Ritual Vessels, including the adjustments, had been finished and the woodblocks were also ready. In the following year, the section of Devices and Musical Instruments were also mentioned for editing. In addition, it is worth noting that, from many readings, it is noted that the Wuying palace edition was in 18volume while the Si Ku Quan Shu version is in 28volume. This notion is probably from the Si Ku Quan Shu. However, checking the content in detail, even though some of the volume, number of the objects varied, they are all in 18 volume. This is also evident by the record of the xubian. This is likely to be a typo in the Si Ku Quan Shu.

Content Differences

The printed and the painted version were probably produced based onthe same original design of the set completed in the 1759 but there are identical differences found between the two. Originally, it is believed that there were duplicates in the Harris set which then let the three institutions share some pages which they believed to be the same. Wilson cleared that there is no duplicate but the one type of object made of different materials, thus looked very similar when painted in colour. However, there are still identical differences in designs between the printed and painted versions despite the similar expressions of the coloured. For example, comparing the coloured and printed drum in Fig 1-4 and 1-5, one may recognise that the coloured version had two long green streamers while it is not seen in the printed version. Also, the drumsticks in the coloured case are more paralleled than the printed version. It is unlikely to be a technique difficult. This may indicate two or even more models were used during the production. However, it should be compared with more cases for any further suggestions.

Remaining issues

The rich archival materials found during this research provide a lot of information for analysis. For example, the Jesuit artist Ignatius Sichelbart was also involved in the project even though his name did not appear on the list of staff in the HCLQTS. In addition, only six painters were mentioned in the list of staff while the archive shows the recruitment of additional six outsider painter (外雇画士) due to the huge amount of work needed to be done. Furthermore, court artists like Jin Kun was both mentioned in the commission of the Forty-View of the Summer Palace, the painting of lubu dajia, and the modelled image of ritual objects in the 13th and 14th year of the Qianlong, at the very beginning of the project. Considering the HCLQTS and the Forty-Views of the Summer Palace are similar in format that a page of illustration paired with a page of texts in a whole folio and the close connection between the HCLQTS and the regulation of lubu dajia, it is probably worth investigating in further to clarify if there are deeper connections between the three. However, since these questions here are beyond the main purpose of this research and the analysis on these questions requesting further time and specification. Therefore, this essay will not elaborate on arguments relevant to these themes while even based just on what is available now, it is worthy for further studies.

Chapter 2, Reception and the Provenance evidence of the HCLQTS in the Qing court

The reception of the HCLQTS is discussed by Liu early on. According to her, the commission of the HCLQTS is a part of ritual reform involves the daqing huidian and daqing tongli. In addition, she notes that the victories in the wars against rebellions during the period mentioned by the official’s inscription can be another reason for having the full version of HCLQTS ready by the 24th year.However, much of her discussions are based on the analysis of the Qing literatures published during the period and she may not be able to verify her ideas to the actual records of the production. For this reason, especially with the new understandings of the HCLQTS and its connections to another imperial illustrative works commissioned in the similar period, it is possible to add something new to her conclusion. Based on Liu`s argument, the connection between the full version of the HCLQTS and the two textual sources, the daqing huidian and the daqing tongli is clear. However, why would the emperor decided to have his preface in such short period of time? In another word, one would agree that the HCLQTS is a part of the ritual reform together with the daqing huidian and the daqing tongli but why the preface of the HCLQTS need to be written in the summer of the 1759, considering editing and adjustment continued till the 33rd year (AD 1768). A record dated the end of 1759 probably conveys at least the answer. Accordingly, the emperor notes that ‘the following year will be my 50th birthday and a year after that will be the 70th birthday of the dowager empress’. To prepare the ceremony of these two important events, Qianlong emperor ordered to confer titles to a list of his concubines and commissioned a list of corresponding gifts for celebration. If one would agree on the idea that the materials mentioned in records of the 23rd year (1758) were newly added to the HCLQTS, it is probably reasonable to argue that the emperor probably specifically requested the HCLQTS to be ready before these events thus he could practice the new rituals approved by him in these two commemorative moments.

Despite this direct reason, the commission of the HCLQTS can be understood by comparing to the corresponding illustrative projects. As argued above, the starting point of the HCLQTS can be traced back to about the 15th year of Qianlong (1750). Lai`s research notices the specific importance of this year. Also in 1750, Qianglong emperor also ordered to re-produce the Album of Birds by Jiang Tingxi,（Jiang Tingxi Niaopu蒋廷锡鸟谱）. Similarly, the Album of Animals (shoupu兽谱) was also commissioned at the same time and in the following, the big visual project of the Portraits of Periodical Offering (zhigong tu职贡图) project also started under the emperor`s request. Interestingly, these projects share a very similar design of format, that an illustration on the right and text to the left. The only difference is that both the Album of Birds and the Portraits of Periodical Offering have texts in both Manchu and Chinese while the HCLQTS has only the Chinese texts. If tracing further back, one may notice that the Forty-View of the Summer Palace which was commissioned as early as the first year of Qianlong (1735) also shares a similar idea of representation. Despite the format, the size of them is also similar. Accordingly, the six-volume Album of Animals painted by Yusheng and Zhang Weibang, was in 1 chi 2 cun 5 fen high and 1 chi 3 cun wide. The twelve-volume Album of Birds, also painted by Yu Sheng, is of the same size. Similarly, at least the version of the Portraits of Periodical Offering kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (hereafter BnF) is of the same size. The measurements here are familiar to the reader because these are exactly the same to the Large Size of the HCLQTS design. Furthermore, they were all produced during the same period. All started in roughly the 15th year (1750), the Album of Birds and the Album of Animals were finished together in the 26th year of Qianlong (1761). There is no accurate finishing date for the BnF version of the Portraits of Periodical Offering but according to Lai`s study, this set should roughly finished in around 26th year (1761) As for the HCLQTS, even though its finishing date of the 24th year is still arguable, it is no doubt that the making of relevant images paralleled to other projects. This is evident by a record dated June the 26th year (1762). Accordingly the officials had reported that the works amount of the Album of Bird, the Album of Animals and the HCLQTS is too much thus in need of extra outsider painter (外雇匠人). Sharing many similarities in the format, size, starting dates, and production period and especially considering that they are all illustrative on certain themes, it is reasonable to believe that they are closely connected from the beginning. In Lai`s study on the Portraits of Periodical Offering, she notices that the project reflects the increasing interests on the ‘western theme’ (西洋). According to her, a great percentage of foreigners appeared in the Portraits of Periodical Offering, which reflect Qianlong emperor`s attention on absorbing the foreign as a part of the world (天下), and to the son of heaven (天子) in Chinese context, this ‘world’ here thus belongs to the emperor Qianlong. This is also evident in the Album of Birds that by absorbing the image of Emu, a bird originally from the New World, into a part of the album for the ‘world’.

Although HCLQTS, namely an illustrative publication for the Qing ritual has nothing to do with the concept of western or foreign, intentions driven by similar factors can also be found inside of its content. As Rado notices, the emperor` archery set for the Grand Review in the section of Arms and Armours clearly reflect a western motif, which according to her rooted to the increasing interests and consumption of the western textile during Qianlong`s reign. By inserting the western textiles into the HCLQTS, the western skills were incorporated into the state ceremonies, thus fabricating Qianlong`s identity of the universal ruler. More importantly, Lai argues that the Album of Birds, the Album of Animals and the Portraits of Periodical Offering, each focusing on the people, the birds and the animal, in another word the elements of the empire, thus, can be considered as a part of the larger project representing the emperor`s land. The theme of the HCLQTS is more abstract in concept, though, it also reflects much of the realistic representation and even the ritual paraphernalia itself and can be also considered as a form of what the son of the heaven ought to regulate. Therefore, it is probably also suitable to insert the HCLQTS into the occlusion. As a result, by commissioning these rather realistic images, the emperor showed off his ‘accurate’ understanding of the world which he ruled and in return, the representation of this knowledge which is much advanced in comparison to the similar projects in history could be considered to be the evidence of the success of the emperor`s reign.

The Harris set

If the arguments above provide the identities of the HCLQTS as an entirety in the Qing court, Qianlong`s specific attention on the Costume section offers a more direct connection to the Harris set since the Harris set was recognised as ‘Illustrated Catalogue of the State Wardrobe of the Emperor of China’. Due to the time management, I have not been able to examine the portion in the National Museum of Ireland while based on the images from the V&A and the National Museum of Scotland together with the registry list given, images of Costumes in the Harris set are all the costumes of the Emperor and the 1st ranked imperial concubine (皇贵妃), which according to the xubian the volume 30 and the volume 43. Dress is traditionally rooted to the representation of the power. As early as Han, different types of dress were used to distinguish the privileged from the common people. Till the Ming dynasty, a system of dress from the emperor to the officials was established and much of the motifs and design, except the colour system were adopted by the following Qing dynasty. However, since the emperor of the Qing is the Manchus, they refused to adopt the customs of the Han Chinese because they are afraid of forgetting their tradition and then lost their Manchu identity. For this reason, the costumes for the emperor in practice remained the use of motifs such as the five-claw dragon but kept a certain distance to the Ming imperial robes. Taking this in account, then the Costume and Accessories section in the HCLQTS thus suggest a dual function. On the one hand, the comprehensive illustrated regulations and the usages of costumes for both the males and the females, ranging from the top of the hierarchy, the emperor, to the bottom, the officials of the lowest rank, provide detailed guidelines of what people should do, which reflect the emperor`s knowledge on the land he is ruling. On the other hand, however, the detailed regulations on the Costumes section suggest the emperor`s attempts to resist the corrode from the Han-Chinese culture. This is clearly evident in Qianlong`s preface where the emperor notes that Manchu people should keep the tradition of the costumes. He gave examples of the Northern Wei, the Liao and the Jin, which are all the dynasties changed into Chinese robes and died out. Although there is no necessary logic between the two facts, by highlighting it, the detailed regulation of costumes thus becomes a warning. It is probably not a matter if a Manchu figure should know all the regulations but after seeing the publication per se, he or she should be reminded about the Manchu identity.

Provenance

From the known portions of HCLQTS in the public collections at the present, only the Harris set and the part from the Mactaggart Collection holding pages with the Yuanming Yuan seal. The provenance of the part from the Mactaggart Collection was studied by scholars and a discussion will be given in the next chapter. As for the Harris set, it was recognised as the object from the Summer Palace when they were acquired by the museum according to the acquisition notes, while it is very hard to know if the provenance was noted by the seller or, it was recognised by the museums staffs when they found the seal marks. Benefit from the new understandings of its production process, as well as the new materials examined above, it is now possible to examine the Yuanming Yuan origin of the Harris set from another perspective. The record of the Zaobanchu Archive in 1777 is crucial since its lists not only prove the existence of the Yuanming Yuan set, but also lists others including a set in Qianqing palace and another one in Chengde. As discussed above, the archival information of these two sets are found in the mulu and xubian. However, their records are not detailed enough and especially without a page to page comparison, it is yet not possible to recognise the differences in content between the printed and the painted versions. Despite the record of the 42nd year (1777), the fragmentary commissioned pages mentioned in the Zaobanchu Archives do not provide clearer indications to the content of what was painted.

Furthermore, as has been discussed previously, the difficulties in accessing the two relatively more complete Chengde and Qianqing palace set make it impossible to identify what is missing in not only the Harris set but also in the rest. Fortunately, the marks on the V&A and NMS portions of Harris set provide some additional clues. As has been mentioned, the xubian and mulu contain description of content of the Qianqing palace set and the Chengde set separately. In xubian it notes that the Qianqing palace set has three imperial seals, the Wu fu wu dai tang gu xi tian zi bao (The Hall of Five Happiness and Five Generations)，Ba zheng mao die zhi bao（The Seal of an Octogenarian and Qianlong yulan zhi bao (Viewed by His Majestry Qianlong). In addition, the starting and ending objects and the total page of each volume amongst the 92 is given. In comparison, the record from mulu provides a more detailed description which notes not only the number of both images and texts in each volume, but also the location of the seals. In addition to the three seals, two additional small seals are recorded in the first volume and the Seal of Bishu Shanzhuang (避暑山庄) is also noted. This is seemingly perfect that they filled the blank of each other. However, by comparing the content of the two, one may find it very confusing. Despite the section of jiqi the Ritual Vessels, which has exactly matched the number of texts and objects, there are many notes not matching with each other. For example, in the volume 30, the xubian notes ‘ from the Emperor`s winter hats to the court girdle朝带, thirty pages’ while the volume 30 in mulu records ’42 pages of illustrations, 18 pages of texts’ recording 11 types of objects including the Emperor`s winter hats’. Without an actual example to compare with, it is seemingly impossible to explain the differences between the page numbers from two records. Particularly, as mentioned at the beginning, scholars notice that the painted version has more pages than the printed version. At this point, even with the support from the printed version, it is not possible to know the actual content of the painted version. The marks from the back of the pages from Harris set however provide the essential clue. At the back of almost every page from the Harris set I accessed, there are several marks which can be found. Despite the pencilled accession number, which was certainly marked after the acquisition in 1896, rest of the marks are worth noting. (Fig 2-1) As mentioned before, a whole page or folios of HCLQTS is joined by two square pages normally with an illustration on the right and a text to the left. Normally the back of the left page is empty except the pencilled accession number. In contrast, there are several marks found on the back of the right page. First of all, there will be two individual Chinese writings, one above another, both written in black ink. In some cases, those writings can be recognised as numbers in Chinese character while sometimes, it seems to be marks. These marks only appeared on the back of the right page. Next to these black writings, we can find the pencilled mark attempts to translate the Chinese writings into numbers. The translations written in Roman letter help us to date it probably back to at least mid-20th century since this writing is no longer widely in use afterwards. Considering Medley published the first study on these HCLQTS pages in 1959, it could be her or museum staff who translated those marks. This attempt in decoding these Chinese writings was not very successful since the translated number would not match either the volume number or the page number in the printed version. Probably for this reason, even though modern scholars certainly noticed it, no suggestion was ever mentioned in any published paper. In addition to these black marks, there will be numbers written in red ink, and in most of the cases, on the back of the both left and right pages. Since these numbers are not the accession numbers, they would not be written after 1896. Therefore, the number in red could very possibly be the marks made by the previous owner or, more likely a previous dealer or auctioneer. This could be further supported by the back of the a page from NMS, where an incomplete piece of a blue paper, with unrecognisable letters written in the 19th century style is left (Fig 2-2) The black and red marks do not explain anything themselves and the key to understand them requires not only the marks of all the backs of the pages from the Harris set but also the information provided by the records from xubian and mulu. The content of the Harris set was analysed by scholars long ago. Accordingly, the Harris set consists of pages from the sections of guanfu the Costumes, yueqi the Musical Instruments, lubu the Insignia and wubei, the Arms and Armours. However, as Wilson and Medley noted, the painted set was not perfectly matching the printed version. Especially consider the images from separated collections cannot be viewed at the same time, no one in the past ever tried to reconstruct the order before the separation. In this case, with the warm support from the V&A and NMS, it is now possible to list all the pages in the order of the red number, rather than the accession number. If one follows the modern accession number of the V&A and NMS portion, the red numbers are of no particular order. Especially considering the museum records do not mention how the pages were shared, no one knows the original order of the pages back to the acquisition. In addition, probably because the backs of the pages were never studied altogether, these ‘random’ red numbers did not attract attentions in the past. Fortunately, I had all the back pages from the V&A and NMS, which allowed me to puzzled all the papers not in the order of accession number. Surprisingly, by having images in this order, with the support from the registry of the portion in the NMI, one may find that the red marks grow from 1 to 145 and at least from 1 to 94 unbrokenly. If one would agree that the red marks were made by the seller prior to the museum staff or even Harris, the number may indicate how they were packed before 1896. Therefore, by listing them accordingly, its original order back to the 19th century can be reconstructed.

Under this order, these pages can be grouped according to the contents. The number 1 to 4 are four full pages each having an imperial seal, two of them, the Wu fu wu dai tang gu xi tian zi bao (The Hall of Five Happiness and Five Generations) and the Ba zheng mao die zhi bao（The Seal of an Octogenarian）are both mentioned by the mulu and xubian. In addition, there are two folio of Yuanming Yuan Bao (the Treasure of Yuanming Yuan). From 5 to 34, are the pages of the Costumes of the Emperor. From 35 to 51 are the sections of the Musical Instruments. From 52 to 67 are pages from Arms and Armours. The pages from 69 to 94 are the illustrations of the Costumes of the Emperor`s concubine of the highest rank. Short of time, I have not been able to sort out the rest of the numbers but they are either from the Insignia or the Arms and Armours and very likely follow the similar order. This conclusion is not surprising since many scholars also found it by connecting the content to the printed version. However, if comparing the images classified as such to the volumes indicated by the mulu and xubian, one may find that page 5 to 34 is matching the first and last object of the volume 43. Similarly, pages from 35 to 51 correspond to volume 57; page 52 to 67 matches the volume 81 and page 59 to 94 matches the volume 43. Based on this, for those single square plates appeared in both museums occasionally, I would suggest that they were cut by the staff of the South Kensington Museum (later V&A) after the acquisition rather than dealers or Harris before the acquisition. They cut these pages probably because they were considered duplicates thus selected to be the parts sharing with the two other museums. This explains why a greater percentage of the pages in the NMS are single rather than a folio and the back number is jumping very significantly. A step further, one may check the content of the volumes by comparing the description in the mulu and xubian to the corresponding painted pages and the printed version. According to my survey, only the volume 30 and volume 57 are because both the starting and ending object and page number matched to the note in xubian. For the rest of the pages, although not matching perfectly, they are all covered in the corresponding volumes and no object from a single group crossed two volumes. As mentioned earlier, the mulu and xubian are written in different order that the xubian gives only a page number while the mulu provide number of pages and images for each volume. Specifically, they both use ye(页) for page number while in Chinese, it may refer both a single leaf or a two-leaves folio. For this reason, two different page numbers are given while one cannot verify if they were two ways of interpretation or have different number of objects or texts in the content. However, it is no possible to use the volume 30 and 57 for examination. By comparing the content of the volume 30 and volume 57 to the record from mulu, the content matches both the number of the illustrations and texts. As a result, it is very likely to suggest that both the records from mulu and xubian are the same. The differences in number is only because the two ways of calculating the page. Furthermore, based on the known volume number and content, it is now possible to decode the mystery of the black ink writings. In fact, the number on the top refers to the number of volume of the section. For example, the volume 30 is the second volume of the section of the Costumes and Accessories. Then, the top number of all pages in this volume is marked 2 in black ink, although in an unusual way of writing. The number below, thus referenced to the page number within the volume. For example, again in volume 30, the Winter Hat of the Emperor is the first object, is marked as one. (see Fig. 1-6) The text of the Emperor`s court girdle no. 2, is the last page of the volume, is therefore marked as 30. Considering the traditional Chinese reading order, which is from the right to the left, the back of the right page, will face the front. Also, the writings seem to be brush strokes, although far from calligraphy, thus in my opinion, indicate that they were written in the Chinese court back to the 18th century. Therefore, these numbers should be the original index for the HCLQTS and could be applied to pages of other portions to check identify the potential missing page and locate the position of a page in the HCLQTS. In addition, it is mentioned in the mulu that the first object in each volume was sealed the smaller Qianlong yulan zhi bao (Viewed by His Majestry Qianlong). Although the first page of the volume 43 is in the NMI thus not checked and the volume 81 is not complete, this is evident in both volume 30 and 57. (See Fig 2-1) Therefore, it is likely to argue that any additional HCLQTS page found with the seal could be either the first or the last page of the volume, which may help to clarify the order. Although those numbered after 94 is yet to be examined due to the time limit, all the matching results seem to suggest that the whole Harris set is formed by complete volumes, rather than individual pages randomly grouped together. Therefore, it is very likely to say that they probably from a same source.

Benefit from this discovery, clearly, the descriptions from both mulu and xubian are matching each other and their records are relatively so far accurate and reliable. Then, it is probably okay to compare the seals from the record with marks found in the Harris set to identify its Yuanming Yuan origin. By checking the three, the Qianqing palace set has three imperial seals, the Wu fu wu dai tang gu xi tian zi bao (The Hall of Five Happiness and Five Generations)，Ba zheng mao die zhi bao（The Seal of an Octogenarian and Qianlong yulan zhi bao (Viewed by His Majestry Qianlong) are all mentioned in the two archives and can also be found in the Harris set. The record in xubian does not indicate the existence of the seal of Qianqing palace while the mulu clearly notes the seal of the locating palace, the Seal of Bishu Shanzhuang (避暑山庄) in Chengde, which is also noted by Wilson when she was able to check the original work of the set. Accordingly, two folios with Bishu Shanzhuang seal can be found in the last two pages of the first volume. In comparison, there are also two folios of Treasure of Yuanming Yuan seal(圆明园宝) found in the Harris set. And interestingly, there are also a folio of Treasure of Yuanming Yuan seal found in the Mactaggart Collection. Unfortunately, the first volume is missing so one cannot compare the content to the record, which additional seals were mentioned. Despite that, at the back of the page containing the seal of Wu fu wu dai tang gu xi tian zi bao (The Hall of Five Happiness and Five Generations) from the Harris set, it is written five volumes of the Musical Instruments (乐器五册). Presumably, it could be the first page of the section of the Musical Instruments for that inscription. However, in both archives, there are seven volumes instead of five under the Musical Instruments section and mulu does not mention the seal in this volume, Therefore, the order of the seal and sometimes even the notes on the page is yet clear. Nevertheless, even from this result, the pages from the Harris set and the Mactaggart Collection is very likely to be parts of the HCLQTS kept in the Yuanming Yuan. Also, if we count a two-leaves folio as one page, based on the page number given in xubian, a full HCLQTS consists 2206 pages, which is very close to the number given by the curator of the Chengde set mentioned by Wilson. However, Wilson notes that the curator claim missing pages according to the comparison, it is yet to be confirmed without a visiting and checking. Besides, I should admit that the verification only apply to a very small portion of the HCLQTS and one cannot deny the existence of possible differences of content unless a comparison between the record and the corresponding set was made. Benefit from the conclusion above, by analysing the size of the known portions in modern collections and the archival records, some clues can be found to the pages without clear provenance. In Wilson`s study, the modern measurement of the Chengde set is 286mm high and 309mm wide. In comparison, the mulu recorded the size of this set as 9 cun high 9 cun 7 fen wide in traditional standard. Therefore, it is possible to calculate that, in this standard, 1 cun equals to roughly 32 mm. Then, the Large Size, which is of 1 chi 3 cun 3 fen high and 1 chi 2 cun 8 fen wide, is 426 mm high and 410 mm wide. Comparing to the known examples from modern collection, the set in the Palace Museum Beijing collection which is noted as 41cm x 39 cm, is also a Large Size set. The sets held in the V&A collection, which reads 42.2 cm x 41.0cm (15.625 in x 2 ft. 8.125 in) and the portion in the Mactaggart collection, measured 42.2 cm x 40.8 cm, are thus also of Large Size. Since the arguments above tend to suggest the Ningshou palace set in Forbidden city is the Small Size set and the Qianqing palace set is clearly noted as the Large Size set. Then I would suggest the set now kept in the Palace Museum Beijing is the Qianqing palace set recorded in xubian. Based on the understanding now there are in total 7 painted sets were mentioned. Among them, the Yuanming Yuan set and the Qianqing palace set (or Palace Museum set) are of the Large Size. The Chengde set is in the Small Size and the Ningshou palace set is very likely to be the Small Size. For the rest of them, the Mukden Palace set, two sets for Xixia palace and Jiangning Zhizao, based on the archival analysis, could very possibly all to be the Small Size. There are no other direct indications suggesting the size of the rest sets while one may find some records conveying relevant information. According to the Yearly Registry (记事录) of the 18th October of the 29th year (1764), five copies in the Small Size were commissioned. In comparison, except the known two sets, only four records throughout the nearly 20-year archives were found noting the commission of HCLQTS in the Large Size. The earliest one was found in the 23rd year (1758) that a copy was commissioned and two years later, it is reported that 406 pages of the Illustration of Ritual Vessels had been completed for approval. After this, it is till the 29th year (1764), additional pages in the Large Size were painted and added. In the next year, 85 pages of the Illustration of the Musical Instruments had been presented for the emperor`s approval. Short in additional evidence, it is not possible to make a solid conclusion but considering the huge variation between the commission records about the Large Size sets and the Small Size sets, one could suggest that the Qianqing palace set and the Yuanming Yuan set are the only two sets in the Large Size while the rest of them are all in the Small Size. If this argument can be approved, one may be able to assume that the pages in the Large Size circulated outside of China are from the Yuanming Yuan portion. However, it is still too far to make this conclusion based on known materials. Especially, it is yet clear if there were sections or portions commissioned for specific usage. For example, it is noticed that the Wuying Dian used to keep a set for producing copies in convenience. Also, it is noted that a certain number of pages were held in the Zhai gong palace. None of them mentioned in the report of the 42nd year, which may suggest that either were they later sent to other listed palaces or kept as only incomplete sections for the relevant functions. Nevertheless, these analyses above provide new directions for further provenance research regarding HCLQTS pages in the collections and probably for those appeared on the art market.

Chapter 3 the HCLQTS encountered the West, the circulation and identity of the looted Summer Palace Objects

As discussed above, one set of the HCLQTS were held in the Yuanming Yuan. Considering its large size, it is probably one of the most important and magnificent portions kept in the imperial garden complex, the Garden of Perfect Clarity, representing its glory and the ruling of the emperor Qianlong. Surprisingly, however, portions of it appeared in the Great Britain, almost the opposite side of the world in the late 19th century. How could such an important imperial commission be out of the palace, incompletely, and circulated in the art market of the late 19th century Britain? How did people at the time, from various background understand and perceive them? In order to answer these questions, this chapter will firstly investigate where they might have benn looted and how they might have benn brought to Europe. Then, this chapter will discuss how the receptions of the Summer Palace loots changes through the time.

Looted from the Summer Palace

Before analysing the performance of the Harris set in the late 19th century Britain, it is crucial to know how it reached the western world especially considering its specific importance in the Qing court. As argued in the previous chapter, despite the possibilities of commissioning incomplete sections or even volumes for specific usage, it is almost impossible to imagine such an important work would be taken out of the palace. Of course, one cannot omit the fact that there were archives noting that staff members who were working in the Yuanming Yuan were caught for stealing objects. However, it is very unlikely to be applied to the HCLQTS case. First of all, the set is of very large size, and as argued above, each two volumes were held in a huge decorated wood box. Also, in the front of each page there are index numbers and from the survey mentioned in the last chapter, although sometimes in complete, most of the pages are from corresponding volumes rather than in random. More importantly, this type of painting was specifically classified as the court painting which is not of the traditional literati taste. Even though there was someone dare to steal a painting from the imperial court, it is not financially worthy to risk oneself for this type of paintings, rather than anything else since no one outside the court would be interested. Despite that, sometimes, objects made for the imperial usage will also be gifted as rewards or for the diplomatic exchanges. For example, during the famous Macartney Embassy, although not successful in diplomatic regards, Qianlong emperor gifted a considerable amount of objects which was brought back to the UK and some of them are still in the Royal Collection. However, it is very unlikely to be the case. As mentioned above, the pages in the Harris set can be matched with certain volumes of different sections. If we assume they were gifted, it would be strange to see a volume randomly from the middle of a section was gifted. Also, considering a complete set caused at least years of production, it again not logic to gift this for any reason. More importantly, considering there are pages with the imperial seals it would be impossible to imagine an emperor would gift portions with the most important mark of the dynasty out of the palace. Particularly, the Ba zheng mao die zhi bao are the seal Qianlong made to celebrate his 80th birthday in 1791. Also, another seal, the Wu fu wu dai tang gu xi tian zi bao (The Hall of Five Happiness and Five Generations) to commemorate his 70th birthday since he received congratulations from five generations of his family, the consorts, sons, grandsons, great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons. Considering such important and private meaning, it would be impossible to assume these portions to be a gift in any sense. Based on the Zaobanchu record of 1777, the Yuanming Yuan set was securely stored there by that year at the very least. Its next public appearance was in 1896 in the UK, which is before the boxing rebellion. Among the century, without the possibility to be gifted or stolen by inner thieves, there is only one possibility left here which allows this type of imperial commissioned objects to be taken out of the Yuanming Yuan palace and reaching Europe, that is the looting of the Summer Palace in 1860. Therefore, although there is yet a secured first hand provenance directly from either the witness of the looting or any marks made by soldiers, one would be very surprised to see if they were not looted from the Summer Palace. The only issue remained here would be whether and how it was taken as well as what happened to the rest of them. In order to analyse this issue, it is important to have a brief understanding of the looting in the 1860. In short, as a part of what is called the Second Opium War, the Anglo-French troops reached the Yuanming Yuan in tandem. No matter which side started first, from the 10th of October, the looting continued for about 3 days and on the 18th Oct, after Elgin ordered to fire the palace, the palace may be looted. Without further evidence, the looting should have happened during the roughly ten days.

HCLQTS in Looting

There is no record noting where the HCLQTS was looted while it is probably possible to argue where it was stored in the Qianlong`s reign. It is generally believed that most of the painted works in the Yuanming Yuan were destroyed together with the Imperial Library. According to a citation of Ringmar, solder recorded that ‘The soldiers broke into the Wenyuanko Library, tore up scrolls, and used old manuscripts as torches or to light their pipes.’ Finally, on the 8th October, the Library together with many other buildings and objects were destroyed as soldiers found many objects were too large to carry. For this reason, many arguments tend to suggest that the painting collection in the Yuanming Yuan were generally destroyed. However, probably because the HCLQTS was not stored in the Imperial Library but at the Main Hall, the Hall of Rectitude and Honour（Zhengda Guangming 正大光明）. There is no inventory record found so far for the buildings of the Yuanming Yuan but from a comparison with collections of main halls of other palaces, it is possible to claim so. According to the 1777 record, two sets of HCLQTS were collected in the palaces inside of the Forbidden City, the Qianqing palace and the Ningshou palace. Very fortunately, the inventory record of the Qianqing palace is published. Accordingly, “under the East and the West wall of the central hall(明殿), there are two wood table in zitan wood (紫檀), holding 24 boxes of HCLQTS, in total 92 volume”. Since Yongzheng period, Qianqing palace started to be the main hall for the Forbidden City for administrative purposes. (Fig 3-1) As for the Ningshou palace, it was believed to be the minimised version of the Forbidden City which Qianlong built for his retirement. Starting from the 35th year (1771) and till the 41st year (1776), the main construction was finished. Considering what the court eunuch reported in 1777 that a set of HCLQTS were held in this palace, it is probably not an accident since the palace was just in operation. Unfortunately, no inventory record of this palace has been published but it is probably enough to believe that the Ningshou palace probably shared a similar interior settings to the Qianqing Palace. Similarly, Yuanming Yuan was regarded as another important palace outside of the Forbidden City, thus may share certain similarities in function. Argued by Wong, starting from the Yongzheng emperor, Yuanming Yuan started to function as a regional court and Qing emperor`s spent months there every year. Therefore, it is probably not surprising to have a similar design at least in the main hall. Also, consider the function of the HCLQTS, it either acts as an illustrative instruction for rituals or more to be a symbol of the imperial power, which is not suitable for personal enjoyment in other palaces. Therefore, it is logic to believe that the Yuanming Yuan version of HCLQTS were also held in 24 zitan wood boxes, above two probably rectangular tables. (Fig 3-2) The identity of the looter could be complex. Not only the British and the French soldiers, but also the local Chinese villagers as well as the workers hired by the troops for carrying goods were recorded to be involved in the looting. However, it is unlikely that those Chinese, instead of the French or British officers, who took the HCLQTS back to Europe had been the looters. There are several reasons for this conclusion. First of all, as argued above, those materials are of no particular interest to traditional Chinese taste since they are not of literati painting style which was attractive for the Chinese collectors at the time. In addition, compared to contemporary paintings, concerning the Chinese art market at the time, it is not logical to do so. Even regarding these Chinese involved may not have such knowledge about the market interests, from the perspective of capacity, it is not reasonable. As argued above, those sets are too large to carry and for those who had no carriers, the HCLQTS is less attractive no matter comparing to the painting scrolls or other objects in jade, porcelain or precious metal like gold or silver. In addition, after the Xianfeng emperor (1850-1861) who fled during the looting, returned, he ordered the officials to trace back the looted objects circulated or hidden in the local area. According to Pei`s study, as early as the 11th October 1860, only 2 days after the Anglo-French troops left, Qing troops reached the area searching for the local looters under the order. The search continued for months and the last report can be found in May 1861, more than half year after the looting. Although it is not deniable that objects could be looted by the Chinese robbers, considering the location the HCLQTS could be stored, the size of it, the style of the painting, and even the policing after the looting, I tend not to believe so. If the HCLQTS had been taken by the British or the French, who would be interested in this can be the next question to ask. Traditionally, the soldiers were described as the treasure seekers who cared only if the objects were valuable to them. This is evident in many solder`s descriptions. For example, it is described that: “The soldiers destroyed vases and mirrors, tore down paintings and scrolls, broke into the storehouse of silks and used the precious fabrics for tying up their horses; they draped themselves in the empress’s robes, and stuffed their pockets full of rubies, sapphires, pearls and pieces of crystal rock.” Their behavior was described by Hevia as ‘wild, unregulated frenzy of destruction and theft’.However, Hill`s study suggests a more complex pattern under the chaotic looting scene. In particular, she gave example of silk arguing that, from the past experiences of taking the enemy`s cloth as trophies, the British soldiers may acquire some taste or interests on Chinese silk. Probably for the market value, or even just for personal interests, Chinese textiles were favoured by soldiers. In this case, it is thus probably a factor since 25 out of 92 volumes are the sections of Costumes and pages corresponding to two volumes from the Harris sets are directly referencing the imperial costumes. The situation above probably described a more common experience for both the French and the British while, if the HCLQTS had been looted by the British, the Prize auction and the commoditisation of the looted objects may lead to a different situation. Accordingly, the British commander issued the order to centralise all the looted objects for an auction on 9th October. Those objects were to be displayed and auctioned and the money earned were to be shared by soldiers in different percentage according to ranks. Because of this, although it is possible for some soldiers to have hidden small objects, considering the size of the HCLQTS, it must have been auctioned if they were looted by the British. Furthermore, through the auction, the final owner of an object may not necessarily to be the original looter. More importantly, considering the financial ability of the soldiers, the larger objects tend to be owned by higher ranking ed officers.

Despite these, the looted objects were thus transformed into the commodities through this procedure. The commoditised objects, may be viewed differently – not only as war trophies or objects worth money, but curiosities or objects of interests. This is particularly trueof the higher officers. For example, a pair of Cloisonné vase-holding elephant statues, L: 495mm; W: 199mm; H: 639mm, were brought back by James Frederick Stuart-Wortley, the First Attaché of Elgin and kept in his family house back at Sheffield. Considering the size, it would not be easy and truly, neither him nor his brother the later Earl of Wharncliffe, managed to sell them until the next generation in 1920s. Therefore, if the HCLQTS had been looted by the British soldiers, it would most likely be owned by a higher officer. This is actually evident by the fact that 33 pages of the HCLQTS were donated to the British Library by Sir Harry Knollys, the British Commander General Hope Grant`s memoir writer, in 1926. From this note, it seems to be reasonable to believe that Grant might have brought a portion, if not all, of the HCLQTS. However, it is not saying that HCLQTS could not have been taken by the French. Despite the arguments on who started first, the French soldiers were also involved in looting. Comparing to the British, the French soldiers were described as acting more freely.Different from the British who let most of the objects into the private hands through the Prize Auction, a much greater number of objects were offered to the French emperor even though many Summer Palace sales occurred. Accordingly, objects offered to the French emperor Napoleon III were put on a display in the Tuileries Palace in1861. After that, those classified as arms and armours were sent to the Artillery Museum, and most of the rest ended up in the Empress Eugenie’s Chinese room in the Chateau of Fontainebleau. The HCLQTS could not have been presented to the French emperor, otherwise it much have been displayed in the exhibitions or in the room in the Chateau of Fontainebleau, thus could have been captured by newspaper reports. Rather than presented to the Emperor, if the HCLQTS had been taken by the French soldiers, it would probably be kept by French soldiers after returning to France. Limited by my ability to understand French , I have not accessed too many studies of the looted Yuanming Yuan objects in France, especially for those not for the French emperor and ended up in Fontainebleau. However, the Forty-View of the Summer Palace, the only example of painting with a secured Yuanming Yuan provenance could still be a good example to exemplify the possible fate of the HCLQTS if the set had been looted by the French. When Charles Dupin, a lieutenant-colonel who accompanied the French commander General Montauban, entered the main hall of the Yuanming Yuan, he found that “shelves around the room were loaded with more cloisonné vases, piles of delicately painted albums, and books written by the emperor in beautiful boxes” It is not known if the paintings described here looted or destroyed while it is clear that Dupin took the whole album of the Forty-View of the Summer Palace back to France. Dupin did not mention if anyone else took anything similar back and since I am not able to read the original catalogue of Dupin or any other soldier in French, I cannot ensure if the French took the HCLQTS back to Europe. Besides, although less likely, one should not omit that the HCLQTS might not necessarily be brought back by those soldiers. Although less mentioned, there is a possibility that some of the looted objects could circulate in the local Chinese market and was brought back to Europe later either by dealers or travellers even years after the looting. This is evident by Hevia`s writing that objects from the Yuanming Yuan started to appear on the local market almost as soon as the soldiers entered the Beijing city. For example, a porcelain vase comparable to a vase in the Fontainebleau collection which is believed to be one major destination for the looted Yuanming yuan objects, was captured by the photography of John Thompson who travelled to China in the 1870. (Fig) In addition, Hevia notes that soldiers also sold objects at the treaty ports during the return journey and the buyers include the European traders and Chinese dealers and only a year after, advertisements of the Summer Palace loot sale could be found in Hong Kong. Therefore, without further evidence, one cannot assume the HCLQTS were brought to Europe directly after the war thus it is yet possible to connect the provenance of the HCLQTS from the Yuanming Yuan to the last private owner Walter H. Harris.

The reception of the Summer Palace objects and the identity of the HCLQTS in the 19th century

Although there is yet to understand how the HCLQTS encountered the western society during its circulation in the 19th century Europe, its identity however may be argued through a comparative study of other looted materials. The looted objects witnessed a huge transformation of their identity. As Pierson argues, those objects designed for the sake of emperor`s interests, are largely different from what could be found on the European market although they all categorised as Chinese materials. After arriving at Europe, they started to attract attention from various perspectives. The experience of getting looted formed a very immediate transformation of identity. Through the looting, almost every single object was transformed into trophies; this conveyed the political implications no matter the style, form and even materials. This is evident by the fact that the emperor`s hat, together with a Tibetan Ritual cup made of skull which was misidentified as ‘Sayings of Confucius’, as well as a Pakinese dog named looty, were selected to be presented to Queen Victoria. Materially, they are no less beautiful or valuable and the dog is not even an object, while because they are connected to the Qing emperor, thus linked to the Qing sovereignty, thus can be regarded as examples of trophies. In addition, it is argued by Tythacott that objects looted and later donated to the regimental museums, would have also performed a similar role. In the example of the Gordon`s Throne in the Royal Engineers Museum, it is not even a matter that the throne was not correctly restored, by placing it in the museum, it functioned perfectly to educate soldiers of their glorious history. Not long after the war, however, since the legitimacy of the war was no longer a major issue, objects started to be viewed for their form, patterns of design, technique of making and sometimes materials. As mentioned before, higher ranked officers with better financial conditions would acquire more freely which was sometimes beyond the simple calculations of the worth of money. Again, in the example of James Fredrick Stuart- Wortley, after having the pair of cloisonné elephants back, his brother, the later Earl of Wharncliffe exhibited them, together with other cloisonné pieces in the Annual Conversazione of the Sheffield School of Art in 1862.

Instead of taking it as a war trophy i , although he did not reject such idea when he was questioned by the legal principles of the looting, he appreciated these for the use of colour and wanted them as models of art to inspire the art students there. Although the Wharncliffe`s personal account did not necessarily represent a wider view from the general public, the artistic value of these imperial objects started to be observed step by step. For example, according to Hill`s study, British designers such as Owen Jones (1809-1874), started to adopt patterns from some of the looted objects for his design. Rather than regarded for the political identity, those objects are here only for a matter of good design. Probably, till the 1870s, the negative political implication of the Summer Palace provenance generally faded while the artistic value started to get appreciated. This is probably evident by the cloisonné. In the 1874, South Kensington Museum organised an exhibition of the Enamel wares of the world. Among these, several cloisonné pieces with the Summer Palace appeared. Although still marked ‘from the Summer Palace’, the catalogue however had no negative view on the object while only the techniques were focused. This attitude is probably also extended to the art market. When Wortley`s collection was sold in 1871 after his death, none of the objects were marked as the Summer Palace loots and only for people who are aware of the history, can one realise the provenance through the title ‘late Attaché to Lord Elgin`s Embassy’. However, this enthusiasm on both the Summer Palace provenance and Chinese art in general was largely category focused. The paintings for example, were out of the sight of not only the soldiers but also the buyers of the market. Very rarely could one spot a single Chinese painting from the auction catalogue during the mid-late 19th century Britain regardless of the Summer Palace provenance except those commissioned in Guangdong (Canton) for export specifically. The French shared a similar attitude towards paintings. It is not known why would Dupin take it and according to Thomas, even this type of painting was considered as a souvenir than a work of art. This is clearly reflected by the experience of the Forty-Views after getting shipped back to France. Dupin attempted to sell the huge albums through auctions while it failed twice until the Imperial Library, now part of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France acquired it by paying 4200 French francs from a book dealer. Nevertheless however, in the late 19th century would probably not be regarded as war trophies anymore even though we have no further clue on how Harris, or the former owner viewed them.

Reception of the HCLQTS in the 19th century Art Market.

Fortunately, the provenance of the Mactaggart set may provide an example of how HCLQTS was viewed back to the 19th century. Accordingly, a group of folios were purchased by Sir Thomas Phillips from the sale of Puttick in 1863. Fortunately, all the original annotated catalogues were kept in the British Library and by cheeking the record, Lot 173 seems matching. Accordingly, 30 Drawings of ‘Chinese Empress`s Ceremonial Costume’ accordingly, ‘represent the gorgeous State Costume of the Empress of China’ in the size of 16 3/4 in. by 16 in. (42cm x 40 cm). More importantly, the provenance is noted as “This volume was also taken from the Emperor`s Summer Palace at Pekin. A Kind of Seal or Official is at the commencement”. It is not clear if the seal mentioned here is the seal of Summer Palace which can be found form the Mactaggart Collection but from the description here, it is evident that the provenance here is seemingly okay. Surprisingly, for such a huge and magnificent volume, the sale price is ‘only’ £15. Of course, in 1863 it is already a big price while comparing to the lot 257 ‘A Vase with Cylindrical Handles, enamelled with flowers on Crimson Ground’ sold by the Christie`s Mason and Wood on May 30th 1862 for £155, it is clear that the paintings were much less interested by the contemporary buyers even with the Summer Palace provenance. Unfortunately, the catalogue does not record the seller while according to Dickinson, the backs of these pages have numbers of similar order comparing to the Knolly`s set. I have not been able to access both sets thus it cannot be verified while from this note, the numbering system is not alike the numbers marked on the Harris set. Based on the catalogue, the lot, together with several other Chinese materials including lot 172 ‘Chinese Geography.

A series of Thirteen Maps of Some Chinese Provinces’, also noted from the Summer Palace, lot 173* ‘Chinese Drawings (Four) of Seaports, Harbours etc’, Lot 174 ‘Chinese Drawings, Eight Delineations of the Exterior and Interior of Chinese Houses, and three Drawings of Flowers and Birds, by a Native Artist’ and lot 175 ‘Chronicle of the Kings of Britain dated 1811’, were all bought by the Quaritch, a cook seller still active in Mayfair area. However, their 19th century archives are now in the Bodleian Library and not catalogued in order. Therefore, I have not been above to investigate further. Interestingly, one should not omit the fact that, in the portion later acquired in 1900, there is a page attached the family mark of Macartney. (Fig 3-3) It had been argued the potential provenance connection between the 1900 set to the Macartney`s embassy while Medley tend not to accept the suggestion since she found those arguments misrecognised a ‘M’ mark, the mark for V&A, as ‘Macartney’. However, in the file of 1953 acquisition, a small note is attached pointing the lot 1406 on the last day of the Macartney Sale at Puttick & Simpson 24-28 January 1854. By checking the catalogue, one may notice that the lot was not from Macartney but an unknown gentleman. The lot reads: ‘Chinese Drawings. Twenty-Three Splendid Drawings by Native Artists, of Chinese Male and Female Costume, executed with the highest delicacy of finish, some heightened with gold and silver; and Thirty-Eight Drawings (To a rather larger scale) of Females performing on various kinds of musical instruments, of similarly beautiful work in all of the 61 drawings, bound in crimson morocco extra, with joints atlas folio’. From the description, the second part of the lot is clearly not the HCLQTS since there are figures while no any figure in the HCLQTS. However, from only the description, the first 23 drawings could have been a set. I have not been able to check all the 1953 set thus cannot comment thing further while, considering the description is very blurred and without even a size or further provenance, one could not determine anything based only on this because those popular expert painting could also be described as such. But still, this clue rise a question that, even though the Harris set is almost secured, could some sets, or more likely some individual pages of the HCLQTS be gifted as a good instruction of Chinese rituals? At the stage, there is not enough evidence for any further discussion but could be a direction worth further analysis.

Chapter 4. Harris and the HCLQTS

Without knowing when, how and why, at least 290 pages, or 145 folios were owned by Walter Henry Harris. He was born in 1851 at Clapham Surry in an architecture family. Probably for this reason, in the Census of 1881, he was registered as a Brick maker &Builder. Later, he became a member of the Stoke Exchange and till 1889 he was pointed as the Sherriff of the City of London. In 1892, he reached the peak of his career as a member of British Committee of the British Commission for the Chicago International EXPO, also known as the Worlds Columbian Exposition, in 1893. Probably for this experience, he was also involved in several national or international exhibitions including Antwerp, 1894. Despite these experiences, he was not connected to art world and his later career focus much on business. At last, he was knighted for his contributions during the 1893 Chicago exhibition in 1919 and died on the 3rd March 1922 at his residence at Clapham aged 71st year. (Fig 4-1) As for his father, Henry Harris was an architect from Cornwall. He moved to London in 1839 and had the firm of Aldin and Harris in conjunction with others and involved in development projects around the Pimlico area. After that, the company turned to brick manufacturing at Calpham, where Walter H. Harris was born. In 1864, the old Harris retired and at last died at Brighton in 1889. Based these the biographical information mainly from newspapers, neither did he or his father ever involved in professional art business or collecting, nor did they connect to the Military. Considering he was only aged 9 when the looting happened, he could not be possible to acquire the pages directly from a military source as what Knollys did. Also, since his father showed no sign of either collecting or military connection, it is also very unlikely he inherited such huge and delicate folios from his father. Considering these, it is most likely that Walter H. Harris acquired the HCLQTS in occasion from the market. Then, unless additional information can be found, it is most likely that he acquired the folios after he established his career in the late 19th century, at least after he became a member of Stock Exchange.

Military Medal Collection

By reviewing his activities during the period, one may find that although Harris never build a good collection of paintings or other works of art as many other did, he was once pointed as a ‘well-known collector’ when decided to sell his medal collection. Noting as an advertisement from the auction house, this term could be exaggerated but at least his medal collections are of certain level of seriousness. This is also reflected by the display of his collections. Accordingly, his collection was exhibited at both the Royal Military Exhibition in London and Guidhall Library in London in 1890 and 91. In the following year, he even brought the collection with him to Chicago, which even brought him a reward. I have not been able to find the catalogue of these exhibitions while he did manage to publish his own versions. In the National Art Library London, one may find his catalogue titled ‘Collection of Military and Naval Medals and Decorations’ which is noted as ‘Printed for Private Circulation Only’ in 1891. From the library mark, we may notice that the catalogue entered the National Art Library in 12th Oct 1892, just after the displayed at Guidhall Library in London. In addition to this, another version was printed just a year later. Despite the extended size and some images inserted, the content of the two is generally the same. Considering the preface added the World`s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 for its expiation history, this version is thus probably the same as what he displayed in Chicago. From the catalogues, one may notice that he regarded this collection very seriously. Considering the later version is larger with more details, I will take the later one for analysis despite the content of both remains very similar. The catalogues generally follow the chronological order that the earliest object is the ‘Rear-Admiral James Wilkes Maurice’ dated 1811 and the last, except his own official chain and badge of 1889-90, dated 1882. Since war occurred very frequently during the Victorian era, to avoid confusing, the medals or decorations were classified by regions. For those he considered important, not only the supporting documents, but also footnotes are listed below a lot. Thus, 94 footnotes were listed at the back of the book, which occupied almost half of the content. These footnotes convey information including the relevant history or occasions, the explanation of the person awarding the medals and sometimes even the comments on the market value of medals. It is not known if he wrote all the notes or helped by someone since he did not leave anything but title on the preface of his catalogue, he must have paid much attention on this collection. Despite his interests and success in this niche field of collecting, one thing is worth noting. Among the medals he collected, there are several lots directly relevant to China. Lot 16, described as Chinese Order of the Crystal Button is the first object related to China. Then, a group of medals awarded for two Opium Wars while only the lot 133, noted as ‘TAKU FORTS, 1860 PEKIN, 1860 James Wilson, 1st Deagn. Guards’ is directly relevant to the looting since rest of them were medals either for the First war in 1842 or for the earlier conflicts in 1857. Despite that, however, a “General Gordon`s Star”. Although this medal is for his activity in Egypt, Charles George Gordon served as a royal engineer in China in 1860. Despite his direct involvement in looting, he was later served in China to help the Qing government suppressing the Taiping Rebellion and thus awarded ‘The Yellow Jacket and Peacock`s Feather of the Order of Mandarin, First Class’ and later ranked Tidu, the highest military rank. For this experience, he was called the ‘Chinese Gordon’. He brought back many objects which may reference to the Summer Palace loots and many of the ended up in the Royal Engineer Museum. The most prominent example can be the ‘Gordon`s Throne’ which was presented on behalf of him in 1861 and now reassembled as a bench looking, probably because the confused or missed components during after disassembled for transportation. (Fig 4-2) In addition to that, Gordon had a close relationship with Garnet Wolseley who had not only published the memoirs of the war in 1862 but also in direct relation to looted objects. More importantly, many of his medal collection, including both the General Gordon`s Star and the medal of James Wilson, 1st Deagn. Guards were from same source, the Gray Collection. Probably for this reason, Harris explained specifically at the last line of the catalogue that ‘From the collection of Mr. Gray, a high official in the War Office’. As mentioned above, he relinquished his pursuit on medal collecting and managed to sell all the collections in a London auctioneer Willis`s Rooms of Messers. Robinson & Fisher on 28th May 1897. Like his own version, the sale catalogue did not provide any additional provenance while, from the prices recorded, his collection did show his expertise on this field. Many lots were sold above £20 including several Victoria Cross above £30. Particularly, The Lot 100, the Peninsular Gold Cross were sold for £360, lot 90 ‘The Naval Gold Medal from the 1st June 1794 awarded to Capt. William Domett’ reached £140 and lot 98 Earl St. Vincent`s Medal for £70. Probably because the surname is too ordinary, the medal collecting was not common enough to be widely reported and also due to the time limit and my unawareness of this field, I haven`t found any further information of this Mr. Gray. Nevertheless, from this note, it seems possible to build a possible provenance for the circulation of the HCLQTS. To my assumption, Harris encountered Mr. Gray during his medal collecting career. Either this Mr. Gray, who was from the War Office, inherited this from family or acquired from other military sources the relevant portions of HCLQTS and sold to Harris when he purchased a lot of medals from this Mr. Gray.

Despite this possibility, Harris may havealso acquire the HCLQTS during his role for the Chicago EXPO. As mentioned above, Harris was pointed as a member of Committee responsible for the British Commissions for the Chicago World`s Columbian Exhibition in 1893. Although less likely, since most of the Summer Palace loots should have been taken to Europe first, it is also possible that, from someone, probably a dealer, Harris found and purchased the HCLQTS and then resold it to the British institutions.Although less studied, Chinese objects started to reach North American soil in the late 19th century. The best-known example could be the Bishop collection of Jade, which was formed starting from the late 1870s, now in the Met collection. Most of the provenance of his collection is not known but at least one emerald-green jade vase from the former Brayton Ives Collection was marked from the Summer Palace and one cannot deny that many of his collections are of the imperial quality thus could potentially be the Summer Palace loots. Instead of buying from the immediate Summer Palace sales, he had many objects brought in from China through dealers or acquired from existing collections. For example, it is recorded that Dr. S.W.Bushell who was in China during the late 19th century helped him purchasing Chinese and Japanese works of art. In addition to that, international exhibitions per se are a good place to encounter precious but less studied objects. As mentioned above, probably starting from the Great Exhibition 1851, a series of exhibitions were hold nationally and internationally which attracted not only the visitors but also dealers. In North America, at least the Centennial Exhibitionat Philadelphia 1876 attracted some attention. Not only for the involvement of the Chinese authority and well-funded display court, it is noted that some professional Chinese international traders appeared with goods of great interest . Although hardly can we spot objects sold during the exhibition as Summer Palace loots without the support of further documents, the obvious financial success thus logically brought dealers or even owners of Chinese objects to the exhibition. This is probably also true in the Chicago EXPO. Although Chinese government refused to attend as a protest the Chinese Exclusion Law, local merchant still took part in and built the Chinese Theatre and Joss House, which accordingly attracted many visitors. Therefore, even less likely, the HCLQTS may also be brought to the United States and during the exhibition, shifted from hands of a dealer, a collector or even an more ordinary owner, to Harris who was on his mission to Chicago and in his return, resell this paintings to the British institutions. Comparing to soldiers or noble persons at the time, Walter H. Harris relatively less prominent since he was never involved in wars or known for any glorious family history. Probably for this reason, neither did he publish a biography nor books of family history. For this reason, very fragmentary information of his life could be found which limited the understanding of both his activities, especially his private aspect, and his social network. More importantly, without even a single word, it is not possible to suggest if he ever had any thoughts on art collecting or in this case these painted illustrations. Therefore, despite those guesses above, there are very limited evidence noting where and how Harris acquired the HCLQTS pages from.

Entering the Museums

Although it is not known if Harris sold off all he got to the South Kensington Museum, after a series of conversation, a group of total 290 pages of Chinese books, titled ‘Coloured illustrations of Chinese Costumes && and Descriptions’ were sold to the South Kensington Museum, the Art Library Division in 1895. Thanks to the carefully preserved archives kept in the V&A, which allow us today to reconstruct the whole acquisition from the starting point. The cover of the acquisition paper of the Harris set HCLQTS is dated 17th November 1894, which probably marked the beginning of the acquisition. This is evident by the letter from Harris to Dr. John Donelly dated 5 October 1895 where he complained that he had been waiting for the museum committee`s consideration for more than 12 month. Surely, as early as 1894, Harris offered that what he called the ‘Illustrated Catalogue of the State Wardrobe of the Emperor of China, taken from the Summer Palace in Pekin’. Considering his biography discussed above, it is certain that he must have known this from someone else, probably from the dealer who sold this to him. Also, he might get this information from Sir George Birdwood, the South Asian art specialist who, according to Harris, suggested that the drawings were worth £500. Clearly, Harris was not happy about waiting for so long and ten days later, the ‘mildly exasperated’, according to Medley, pressed the museum again to accept what he offered and pay more straight forward. In doing so, he noted that ‘there is already more than value for the money’ and regard the HCLQTS as ‘really great works of art’. However, the £200 Harris asked for was beyond the capacity of the museum at the time while they certainly recognised the importance of the sets. As a compromise, the museum asked the British Museum to see if they would like to take a share by paying £100 on the same day the museum received the latter letter from Harris. On 9th November, Prof Robert Douglas (1838-1913), the first Keeper of the British Museum`s new Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts created in 1892, replied that he appreciated the value of the ‘Chinese drawings’ while the British Museum would not take the share. After knowing that, a note suggested to ask if ‘the Dublin and Edinburgh’ would take shares.

Then, the unnamed museum staff further suggest to pay for the money if the two rejected even regarding the £200 ‘is out of our grant for drawings of works of art’. Finally, if the purchase was sanctioned, he suggested to pay Prof Douglas to translation. Clearly, both the oriental specialists Prof Douglas, and the museum staff, although not signed, agreed on the value of it. Fortunately, their judgements on the quality of the set were also granted by the colleagues in the two museums in Dublin and Edinburgh. On 16th December, a proper 13 month later, the museum decided to purchase the ‘Illustrated Catalogue of the Wardrobe of the Emperor of China’ from Harris for £200, and the payment was made in the May and July in the following years. From the accession number on the V&A portion of the Harris set, it is known that these paintings were formally registered till the following year. Also, the archive suggests that until on the 17th February, the portion of 61 sheets and another of 65 sheets were sent to Dublin and Edinburgh separately. Trafficking for almost half a century, after being looted, the Harris set of the leaves finally ended up a safe place and were carefully kept till today. By entering the museum, the identity of the Harris set changed again. Different from the market attitude discussed above, the museum staffs, although not necessarily understanding Chinese or its culture. For example, the Sir. John Donnelly (1834-1902), the person Harris contacted to, was the secretary of the Department of Science and Art and was once served as Lieutenant of Royal Engineers. John Henry Middleton (1846-1896), another figure active in this acquisition, the director of the Art Museum, was also not specialising on this field. However, after having a positive comment from the Oriental Specialists, Prof Douglas of the British Museum, the museum specialists tried their best to keep the objects even though the asking price was over the capacity. Clearly, those HCLQTS held in the Museum was not viewed as curiosity or samples of Chinese painting. After been acquired, a careful translation was made for each of the page with texts, which can still found in the Central Inventory of the year 1896. The acquisition shows a determination of the museum why would the museum accept to acquire such a group of drawings in such a high price is yet clear. At the time, there were very limited Chinese painting in general in the UK. According to Wood, opposite to the long history of collecting porcelain, there were limited examples of Chinese painting which could traced back to the 19th century despite that those export paintings were brought back by the East India Company or the wallpapers. In 1882, the British Museum acquired the painting collection of William Anderson (1842-1900) who had a large collection of Japanese paintings with a small portion of Chinese ones, which to Wood, ‘a nod in the direction of the older traditions, as a supplement to the Japanese examples’ Also, it is noteworthy that Anderson formed this collection during his residence in Tokyo. Therefore, his pattern of collection can hardly be considered representative in the British culture. Despite that, surveying the V&A collection of early Chinese painting, only very few can be identified not for foreign consumers. For example, a series of Ten Kings from the Hell were acquired by the museum in 1869 according to the accession number. (Fig 4-3) Without a further investigation on the archives, how they reached the museum is not clear. However, considering both of the two, as well as the HCLQTS are a series, with rather instructive functions. Also, none of them are the literati styled landscape paintings, which are certainly more popular in China.

In addition, from the descriptions of the HCLQTS, it was regarded closer to books rather than paintings although to modern consideration, these works which are painted on silk, are not meant to be books. As mentioned above, the Mactaggart portion was bought by a book dealer. Similarly, in the V&A case, they entered the Art Library Division. This probably reflects a 19th century attitude on Chinese painting that, those works were not regarded as art but manuscripts, drawings thus would not be regarded the same as oil painting or marble statues in western consideration. However, limited by time and further evidence, it is yet too far to have a solid argument and it might be the direction for further studies .

Conclusion

The research on looted objects from the Summer Palace became a hot topic in the recent years. Rather than a grand historical overview, scholars started to take the perspectives from these looted objects to investigate their circulation and their encounters with the changing environment. Besides, provenance study and the increasing interests on the history of collection also drive scholars to investigate how the objects were circulated in the society and interacted to the different owners. Huangchao Liqi Tushi or the Illustrations of Imperial Ritual Paraphernalia of the present dynasty became a good example for both the sides. This essay reviewed the ‘social life’ of the Huangchao Liqi Tushi. Starting from its origin and process or production, this essay investigates how its identity changed from the symbol of emperor`s knowledge of his empire and a warning to his Manchu identity, to a war trophy or commodity and finally became a part of the museum collection. Despite that, benefit from the new materials, including both the Qing archives and the digitalised historical news documents of the 19th century western society, this research tried to combine the art historical judgement to the provenance research and examine how the two types of evidence may have interacted to each other. As a result, in this case, this essay successfully restored the original order of the HCLQTS before the acquisition in the 19th century. Also, based on the understanding of Qing archival materials, this essay provides additional evidence to legitimatise the Yuanming Yuan provenance of the Harris set and tried to fill the provenance gap during the circulation in the 19th century by analysing different possibilities of potential provenance suggestions. However, it is yet to approve that the Harris set was definitely looted from the Summer Palace in 1860. Also, for the lack of further evidence, neither do we know exactly how it came Europe, nor can we understand how people regarded these types of materials during the 19th century. Therefore, the conclusion of this essay is not a finish but a beginning of researches on several different directions.