AI QIMENG (IGNAZ SICHELBART) (1708-1780) AND JIN TINGBIAO (Active 1757-1767) Portrait of a First-Rank Imperial Guard in the East Turkestan Campaign, 1763-1764
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AI QIMENG (IGNAZ SICHELBART) (1708-1780) AND JIN TINGBIAO (Active 1757-1767)
Portrait of a First-Rank Imperial Guard in the East Turkestan Campaign, 1763-1764 Mounted on backing paper, framed and glazed, ink and color on silk. 52 1/4 x 28 3/8in (133 x 72.1cm)
Provenance: Acquired in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) by a German officer Purchased in Hamburg around 1902 from the German officer Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, 21 November 2013, auction 845, lot 572
Unnamed, this figure can be positively identified as one of a hundred brave warriors and exemplary officials whose portraits were painted by artists working in the Qing Imperial studios in early 1760s. The hundred portraits once lined the walls of Ziguang Ge (Hall of Purple Brightness), the Qianlong Emperor's military hall of valor in the Zhongnanhai compound, located in the West Garden in Beijing across a small lake from the Forbidden City. Ziguang Ge was also where the Qianlong Emperor hosted official state banquets and received foreign envoys, so these powerful images of armed warriors would have been an impactful spectacle to those who sat among them.
The one hundred individuals depicted in the 1760s series earned their high accolades in the successful 1755-1759 East Turkestan military campaign. A notable conquest by any measure, the extended battle quashed an ethnic minority rebellion and brought the far western region Xinjiang (lit. 'new frontier') under the control of the Qing dynasty. As development of the frontier regions and expansion of empire was a key goal during the Qianlong period, the heroic warriors were lauded for their bravery and patriotism, and their portraits celebrated their exalted status within the Manchu hierarchy.
Numerous details in this portrait indicate the subject was an Imperial Bodyguard of the First Rank, likely a title afforded him as a result of his heroic combat activities. Like many of the hundred portraits, this subject bears a long bow and quiver of arrows, in addition to being armed with a long sword in a shagreen sheath with gilt fittings. The single-eyed peacock feather dan yan hua ling, and knob that adorn his hat are additional indications of his elevated status, and the hint of an archer's ring on his thumb expresses his unflinching readiness.
The hybrid approach of the painting reflects the Qing courts' attempt at reconciling Chinese and Western aesthetic traditions. The use of shading with opaque pigments in the facial features aesthetically resembles a European oil painting and contrasts with the approach for the figure's clothes and hands. European painters, predominantly Jesuits, had been employed in the Qing imperial ateliers since the Kangxi period. Some, like Guiseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining, 1688-1766) worked under the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors to produce their own work, and as well as working with the Chinese painters in the studio. Often their collaborations involved major commissions dedicated to glorifying Qing military conquests, with portraits, as well as painted and printed illustrations of dramatic battle scenes, and victory banquets. To commemorate the 1755-1759 campaigns on the Western frontier, the Qianlong emperor selected Castiglione to lead the project, with Jin Tingbiao and Ai Qimeng (Ignaz Sichelbart) as the principal artists for the hundred portraits, with Ai Qimeng painting the faces in the falangcai (foreign color) palette.
After the first hundred paintings were created in the early 1760s, other series of hero portraits were commissioned by the Qianlong and later emperors. However, the rendering of the faces in the later portraits revert to a more traditional Chinese approach, and it is believed that European artists were not involved in the later paintings, although traces of their influence would continue to resonate.
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