This hall presents the art and culture of China under the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. The exhibits come from old collections in Saint Petersburg, including the imperial collections and the stock of the Baron Stieglitz College’s museum.
Very few authentic works of historical painting have survived. The materials used as supports for Chinese painting (silk and paper) are not durable at all. The method used to preserve scrolls was to copy them, a process that was part of the system for training novice artists.
To the left of the elephants you can see two scrolls. The horizontal one was painted in the mid-18th century by the court artist Cao Kuiyin. The scroll includes all the elements of a Chinese landscape – mountains, trees, a road, water – but they are transferred, as it were, from the realm of the sublime to the ordinary. This accords with the emotional tone of the verses written on the scroll: the poet Bai Juyi extols the joy of someone who has attained the peace of a solitary life.
The 18th-century vertical scroll carries depictions of trees, flowers and birds, among which a phoenix stands out. Scrolls of this sort adorned the rooms of palaces and were exported to Europe, where they were prized for their festive decorativeness.
The two white elephants with vases on their backs were made in the second half of the 18th century for the Qianlong Emperor. These are the largest known cloisonné enamel elephants with gilded details. They would once have stood either side of the throne or by the entrance to one of the throne rooms of the imperial palace in China. Elephants served as symbols of peace in the land and also signs of well-being and prosperity.
The scroll “Burning Incense” was painted by Huang Shen in 1751. He belonged to a circle of artists who were not associated with the official art patronized by the Emperor. A sketch-like spontaneity of technique combined in his works with keen observation.
