Lavishly luxurious life portraits of Qing Emperors and Empresses
Qing Emperors and Empresses legacy revealed in imperial portraits
Kangxi Emperor in Court robe
Encountering the Majestic Portraits of Qing Emperors and Empresses
The exhibition, Encountering the Majestic: Portraits of Qing Emperors and Empresses at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, examines the roles and development of imperial portraits during the Qing dynasty and the conservation research conducted by the Palace Museum in Beijing.
Tongzhi Emperor in Court Attire
Portraiture is an art form that dates back approximately 5,000 years to ancient Egypt. The earliest works were in clay, stone, plaster, or cave paintings, usually in profile.
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Portrait sculptures in Classical Greece (5-4th century BC) and Ancient Rome (625 BC-476 AD) recorded ruler succession.
Hong Raiji also known as Emperor Taizong
During the Renaissance, portrait paintings recorded the sitter before the invention of photography and advertised their status, achievements, beauty and tastes.
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Court painters were typically ordered to portray kings and queens in a highly idealised and romanticised style to represent their legacies.
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Imperial portraits in ancient China gained prominence during the Song dynasty (960-1279). But during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the Manchu conquerors formalised this practice to legitimise their rule.
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As a result, imperial portraits held great significance for the emperor’s authority and legitimacy, reinforcing hierarchical structures and promoting loyalty.
Empress Dowager Zhaosheng also known as Empress Xiaozhuangwen
The art form also served as a tool for propagating Sinicization through Han-Chinese principles. The illustrations of the Qing court attire are an example of this form of propaganda.
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At first glance, the portraits of the three emperors look identical. They sit in a frontal posture on a throne, with hands placed naturally on their knees, dressed in a minghuang (bright yellow) robe.
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In Daoism’s Five Elements Theory, yellow represents the earth and is placed in the centre. Yellow is also the colour of the sun, so there is the connotation that there can only be one sun in the sky, and so also, there can be only one emperor with the exclusive right to wear yellow.
3 Portraits of Emperors in different court attires
Also incorporated into the robes are the Twelve Imperial Symbols comprising the sun, moon, constellation, fire, grain, waterweed, axe and other auspicious elements.
First used in the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) and standardised by the mid-Qianlong period, these symbolised Confucian philosophies of moral virtues, filial piety, and righteousness of governance.
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Portraits of three Qing dynasty rulers illustrate how the official garments of the emperors evolved. The dragons embroidered on the Shunzhi Emperor’s robe are white with a relatively simple design. The ornaments became more complicated as time progressed.
Animation of Emperor Taizong and Empress Dowager Zhaosheng also known as Empress Xiaozhuangwen
The Kangxi Emperor’s portrait incorporated more coloured embroidery and added a wider variety of dragons, such as the front-facing and moving dragons. Often these dragons were depicted in a symmetrical composition or a twisting motion. This symmetry and motion symbolised the emperor’s strong and dynamic rule.
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Embroidered mountains implied stability and longevity, conveying the idea of an enduring empire. Rolling waves represent the seas’ vastness and might and the never-ending imperial power over maritime territories.
Emperor robes are embellished with dragons
The lower arm sleeves changed to bright yellow, and a court bead necklace made from eastern freshwater pearls completed the outfit for the Qianlong Emperor.
3 Portraits of Empresses in different court attires
Changes were more subtle for the empresses’ robes. Apart from dragons, the significant addition was the embellishment of repetitive shou (longevity) motifs on top of the rolling waves. Another obvious observation was that Xiaokang Empress was in summer court attire.
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However, as can be seen by the black fur trim under their court robes and around the winged-like lapels, the Xiaohe and Xiaoquan Empress were dressed for winter. Likewise, accessories resembling a modern-day long tie known as caishui also differ.
Xiaosheng Xian Empress in Court Attire
It was predominantly white, with minimal decorations before the Qianlong period. Over time, it became more vibrant, as illustrated by the multi-coloured embroidery of the green caishui worn by the two empresses from the latter periods.
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A book called Huangchao liqi tushi details regulations about court attire for royal family members. From this, historians can speculate the identities of unnamed characters in portraits, from empresses to consorts and other ranks of concubines.
Details of the motifs on a dragon robe, Qing Emperors
For example, an empress would wear bright yellow and red robes with freshwater pearls. An imperial noble consort would be dressed in purple. She could also be adorned with phoenix-shaped accessories, but only with seven tails, not nine.
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Lower-ranked consorts could wear paler hues with less costly materials, including diancui (kingfisher feather), coral, gold, silver, or velvet flowers. The fusion of traditional Manchu nomadic clothes modified by fashions that reflected Han values further projected an image of moral rectitude and harmonious governance.
Xiaoqin Xian Empress in Court Attire, preliminary sketch
Creating a portrait took considerable time. To stay faithful to the sitter’s character, a natural pose with a stern facial expression was the accepted practice. Garments were left with the painters to study in detail. However, the sitters only stayed for short stints and usually only returned days apart.
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The technical limitations like slow-drying paint made this particularly challenging for Song dynasty painters, which forced the practice of positioning sitters at a forty-five-degree angle, which, to their understanding, allowed for a more three-dimensional viewpoint.
Xiaoqin Xian Empress in Court Attire
Comparatively, painters of the Qing dynasty could set their subjects closer to a sixty or seventy per cent face-forward profile by incorporating more advanced seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Western art techniques and technologies.
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Yet the traditional flat style was still used, even after the introduction of shading and perspective, as can be seen in the portrait of Xianzhe Yi Empress in Court Attire. The throne was drawn with the Western scientific approach, using imaginary lines connected to a vanishing point. But, the patterns on the carpet seem relatively flat.
Xiaozheyi Empress in Court Attire
This mixture of styles can be attributed to Milan-born artist Guiseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), who arrived in Beijing in 1715.
Better known by his Chinese name Liang Shining, he served as a court painter for over 50 years. He adapted his European training to Chinese media, ink on silk, and created a unique style deemed tasteful across the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns.
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Sadly, but naturally, his eyesight deteriorated as he aged. He worked on the main subjects, leaving his apprentices to complete the clothing and backgrounds, which explains the multiple vanishing points that were copied by subsequent artists who used his works as references.
Portraits of Qing Emperors crucial for worship
Imperial portraits played crucial political, social, and cultural roles in the Qing court, especially for ancestor veneration. These likenesses are called shengrong or yurong (sacred or imperial).
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Such practices, rooted in Confucianism, began as early as the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. The Manchu rulers respected and continued the tradition of demonstrating filial piety to their ancestors.
Shizong Xian (Yongzheng) Emperor in Court Attire
They prominently displayed vertical scroll paintings in ceremonial spaces and ancestral halls as seen in the recreated scenes for the annual ritual at the Hall of Imperial Longevity during the Guangxu period (1871-1908).
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From these scrolls, we know that ancestor portraits were arranged in sets of three using the zhaomu system, which clarified the royal lineage and line of succession. The emperor is always in the middle, with his primary empress on the left and the birth mother of the crown prince or a step-empress on the right. These paintings are instrumental in understanding history better.
Imperial portraits hung using the zhaomu system, Qing Emperors and Empresses
However, many of the artworks have badly deteriorated over time. In response, the Palace Museum in Beijing has conducted a series of conservation exercises on the portraits.
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For example, a new sketch of Xianzhe Yi Empress in Court Attire provides a simple line drawing, referred to as huayang, which offers a glimpse into the creative process of the court painters from initial conceptualisation to the final touches. Specialised tools, papers, and reinvented colour pigments are also on display.
The exhibition also includes a behind-the-scenes video to enhance the appreciation of conservation practices. It details the methods undertaken by the museum’s conservators during the restoration of a painting.
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In this way, they provide an opportunity to understand better the importance of preserving and safeguarding these precious treasures.
Pigments that were used for painting imperial portraits
The final act of the exhibition invites visitors to pose as a historical character found in portrait paintings from different dynasties. This application of technology provides a personalised way to experience changes in historical trends, connecting the past to the contemporary world.
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Overall, imperial portraits played a multifunctional role in the Qing dynasty. They held immense political significance in the Manchu rulers’ governance over the Han Chinese, provided artistic representations of the imperial figures and supported a uniquely Chinese art form.
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More importantly, these portraits are a distinguished record of Chinese history for this and future generations.
Text Shek Man / Photo Shek Man & Hong Kong Palace Museum
