XVII By the end of the 19th century, Europe was beginning to see China as more than the legendary land of Marco Polo. As luxury goods—especially porcelain—flowed west and scientific tools and ideas flowed east, the two civilizations were a little more familiar and a little more envied. This period of what might be called respectable greed ushered in a golden age of collecting, with the French royal court at Versailles, then Europe’s finest, and its Chinese counterpart, the imperial court of the Forbidden City in Peking, buying, commissioning or simply receiving. from both worlds
Now, the remnants of those two collections are coming together for an exhibition at the Palace Museum in Beijing, revealing a surprising amount of cross-currents and stylistic overlaps, and a unifying love of bling. It roughly covers the century before the French Revolution of 1789, which coincided with the peak of power of China’s Qing Dynasty (1636-1912). The Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles: Exchanges between China and France in the 17th and 18th centuries. He uses around 200 objects and works of art to conjure the two centers of prosperity.
The new Chinese exhibition, which will be installed in the Forbidden City’s 19th Century Hall of Literature, is a follow-up to the 2014 Versailles show. China at Versailles: Art and Diplomacy in the 18th Century, which included only works from French collections. Originally planned for 2020 and then delayed by the pandemic, the new show takes advantage of the decade-long gap by including recently acquired French works, such as a porcelain service commissioned for Louis XV but made in China. He wears the coat of arms of France, it is from about 1730.
Portrait of Louis XIV, surrounded by the attributes of the arts and sciences (circa 1672) by J. Garnier © Château de Versailles, Dist. NMR © C. Fouin
Louis XV’s predecessor and most famous great-grandfather, Louis XIV, and the Sun King’s Chinese counterpart, the Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722), are the patrons of this spectacle. It was Louis XIV who inaugurated the connection of the Bourbon kings with China in 1685, when his group of emissaries of Jesuit mathematicians succeeded in winning the favor of Kangxi. The show compares to that of Versailles Portrait of Louis XIV surrounded by the Attributes of the Arts and Sciences (c. 1672), by Jean Garnier, undated Qing of the Palace Museum Portrait of the Kangxi Emperor in Court Robes.
The eternal reverence of French royalty for their Chinese brethren is commemorated in a fusion work—Plaque depicting the Emperor of China, where Charles-Eloi Asselin, a painter from the Sèvres porcelain factory outside Paris, depicted Kangxi’s successor, the Qianlong Emperor, on hard-paste porcelain. Based on a drawing by an Italian Jesuit at the Chinese court, the portrait, circa 1776, is presented in a gilded wood frame decorated with Chinese motifs. He held such a high position in the court of Louis XVI that he entered the king’s private apartments at Versailles.
This skillful combination of East and West can be seen in various objects. A 17th century black lacquer clock inlaid with copper plates, made in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It then made its way to China, where 19th-century restorers replaced the work’s original tortoiseshell marquetry with Chinese-style lacquer work. Marie-Laure de Rochebrun of Versailles – who is the curator of the show together with Guo Fuxiang of the Palace Museum – describes this combination as “very interesting and very funny”.
De Rochebrune, a porcelain specialist, was fooled by another fusion work: a teapot made in France for the Qianlong Emperor by the famous French enameller Joseph Coteau in the 1780s, now in the collection of the Palace Museum. Decorated with Chinese-style chrysanthemums, the object was made using a translucent enamel glaze technique pioneered in France but later imitated in China. “When I first saw it,” says de Rochebrun, who has made trips to Beijing to prepare for the show, “I thought it was a Chinese object.”
19th century French pocket watch with a gold dragon Palace Museum
French and Chinese craftsmanship are also combined in a Palace Museum pocket watch. The 19th-century piece, made in the Thuret workshop in Paris, was probably a gift from Louis XIV to the Kangxi Emperor, whose portrait appears on the back of the gilded copper box. Although French on the outside, a carved golden dragon was inserted inside in China to protect the watch’s spring.
Today, France and China are still practicing their version of finesse diplomacy. The show was formally confirmed in the spring of 2023 during French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to China, a red-carpet affair he said was “nothing but a love fest”. The New York Times. The visit’s fusion of politics and culture could have additional implications, says JP Singh, a professor of political economy at George Mason University in Virginia and the journal’s editor. Global perspectives. The show’s claim to a shared tradition in luxury, Singh says, not only dramatizes the two countries’ cultural history, but also evokes China’s current status as France’s leading exporter of everything from expensive clothes to perfume. “Luxury goods are also a kind of cultural product”, he added.
• The Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles: Exchanges between China and France in the 17th and 18th centuries.Palace Museum, Beijing, April 1 to June 30
