In 1860, during the Second Opium War, invading French and British forces looted the palaces before the British army burned them to the ground, ignoring French objections. The palaces and gardens of Yuanming Yuan exist no more. Volume 1, scene 1: “Zhengda guangming” (“Grand Uprightness and Illumination”). Tang Dai and Shen Yuan, Forty Views of Yuanming Yuan, 1747.

And like Versailles again, Yuanming Yuan was a vast and sumptuous repository of the greatest productions of the country’s royal culture, including architecture, gardens, painting, sculpture, and especially decorative arts. Like Louis XIV’s Versailles, Yuanming Yuan was made an official seat of government, at times used more often than the older and now more famous Forbidden City in Beijing. The palace complex that Qianlong completed included hundreds of wooden buildings and pavilions constructed in classical Chinese style, scattered throughout a vast complex of artificial waterways and classical gardens (fig. Most of it was constructed between 17 by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, including the emperor Qianlong, whose long reign (r.1736–95), enormous power, and cultural wealth gave him a nearly mythical stature similar to that of the earlier Louis XIV in France (r.1643–1715). The imperial palace of Yuanming Yuan (or Garden of Perfect Brightness) used to stand about 20 kilometers northwest of Beijing, close to the so-called Summer Palace that tourists can still visit today. Anonymous, Overview of Yuanming Yuan, photographed 2004. The Looting of Yuanming and the Translation of Chinese Art in Europeįig.

Colors of autumn 94 appreciation