Period:Unknown Production date:1711-1713
Materials:paper
Technique:engraving
Subjects:palace/mansion landscape
Dimensions:Height: 378 millimetres (album covers) Height: 319 millimetres Width: 40.80 millimetres (album covers) Width: 349 millimetres
Description:
Plate from a set of thirty-six prints, bound in a album; view with a building complex including courtyard buildings and a pavilion on stilts, a stream to left, low hills with trees in the foreground and middle ground; beyond, barren hills; rocky landscape in the distance. Engraving on very thin China paper
IMG
![图片[1]-print BM-1955-0212-0.1.1-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Unknown/43/mid_00224361_001.jpg)
Comments:The full set comprises thirty-six engravings. The British Museum volume is from the 18thC and is bound in red Morocco with gold tooling, and on the spine: “EMPER. OF CHINA’S PAL=LACES” (sic). It contains thirty four prints with Registration Numbers 1955,0212,0.1 to 34 and two others acquired separately (1968,0212,0.27 and 28). There are also two photocopies, loose in the volume, of two prints in the NYPL bound volume, corresponding to the two images missing from the British Museum’s 1955 acquisition. A sheet of paper pasted into the volume lists the prints in the 1955 acquisition set, their Chinese titles, and a concordance with the prints in the NYPL volume. The concordance for the additional two plates is written on the back of the photocopies. The prints from the set acquired in 1955 (1955,0212,0.1 to 34) are inscribed beneath the image with a transliteration of the Chinese title, and an Italian version, both thought to be in Ripa’s hand. Most of them also have a slip of paper pasted to the right of the image with the title recorded in ink in Chinese characters.The two additional prints (1968,0212,0.27 and 1968,0212,0.28) have longer titles in Chinese characters on the slips of paper pasted in, but lack the inscribed Chinese transliterations and Italian versions. One of them (1868,0212,0.28) is inscribed with the name of a Chinese engraver.Father Matteo Ripa was an Italian missionary who worked as an artist at the Qing imperial court. He introduced the technique of copperplate engraving to China for pictorial representations and maps. ‘The Mountain Villa to Escape the Heat’ (Bishushanzhuang) was the name give by the Kangxi emperor to a summer palace complex at Rehe (Jehol), now Chengde in Hebei province. This imperial resort, located north east of Beijing beyond the Great Wall, included palace buildings and temples set in a park surrounded by hills. In 1711, before his sixtieth birthday in 1713, the Kangxi emperor composed poems on his favourite thirty-six scenic views of the palace complex and ordered the court artist Shen Yu to paint them. Two sets of prints were produced after the paintings – one in woodcut, the other by Ripa in copperplate engraving – and were combined with imperial poems and other texts. The engraved views are generally more detailed than the woodcut versions, as seen for example in the treatment of the skies and water expanses. The British Museum’s volume does not include the poems and other texts, although most of the prints are inscribed (below the image), probably by Ripa himself, in Chinese transliteration and in Italian. Ripa came to England in 1724, where he was received by King George I, and was no doubt introduced to London society. It has been suggested that these engravings by Ripa influenced the emergence in the eighteenth century of the landscape or natural style of gardening, which was associated with William Kent, Burlington’s protégé. See Basil Gray, ‘Lord Burlington and Father Ripa’s Chinese engravings’, The British Museum Quarterly, vol.22, no1/2, London: British Museum, 1960, pp. 40-43; Patrick Connor ‘Art History’ II 1979, pp.429 ff, ‘China and the landscape garden’, plus comment by J.B.Bury, ibid, II 1980 p.470-1; David Jacques, ‘On the supposed Chineseness of the English Landscape Garden’, ‘Garden History’, Vol.18., No.2 (Autumn, 1990, pp. 180-191).
Materials:paper
Technique:engraving
Subjects:palace/mansion landscape
Dimensions:Height: 378 millimetres (album covers) Height: 319 millimetres Width: 40.80 millimetres (album covers) Width: 349 millimetres
Description:
Plate from a set of thirty-six prints, bound in a album; view with a building complex including courtyard buildings and a pavilion on stilts, a stream to left, low hills with trees in the foreground and middle ground; beyond, barren hills; rocky landscape in the distance. Engraving on very thin China paper
IMG
Comments:The full set comprises thirty-six engravings. The British Museum volume is from the 18thC and is bound in red Morocco with gold tooling, and on the spine: “EMPER. OF CHINA’S PAL=LACES” (sic). It contains thirty four prints with Registration Numbers 1955,0212,0.1 to 34 and two others acquired separately (1968,0212,0.27 and 28). There are also two photocopies, loose in the volume, of two prints in the NYPL bound volume, corresponding to the two images missing from the British Museum’s 1955 acquisition. A sheet of paper pasted into the volume lists the prints in the 1955 acquisition set, their Chinese titles, and a concordance with the prints in the NYPL volume. The concordance for the additional two plates is written on the back of the photocopies. The prints from the set acquired in 1955 (1955,0212,0.1 to 34) are inscribed beneath the image with a transliteration of the Chinese title, and an Italian version, both thought to be in Ripa’s hand. Most of them also have a slip of paper pasted to the right of the image with the title recorded in ink in Chinese characters.The two additional prints (1968,0212,0.27 and 1968,0212,0.28) have longer titles in Chinese characters on the slips of paper pasted in, but lack the inscribed Chinese transliterations and Italian versions. One of them (1868,0212,0.28) is inscribed with the name of a Chinese engraver.Father Matteo Ripa was an Italian missionary who worked as an artist at the Qing imperial court. He introduced the technique of copperplate engraving to China for pictorial representations and maps. ‘The Mountain Villa to Escape the Heat’ (Bishushanzhuang) was the name give by the Kangxi emperor to a summer palace complex at Rehe (Jehol), now Chengde in Hebei province. This imperial resort, located north east of Beijing beyond the Great Wall, included palace buildings and temples set in a park surrounded by hills. In 1711, before his sixtieth birthday in 1713, the Kangxi emperor composed poems on his favourite thirty-six scenic views of the palace complex and ordered the court artist Shen Yu to paint them. Two sets of prints were produced after the paintings – one in woodcut, the other by Ripa in copperplate engraving – and were combined with imperial poems and other texts. The engraved views are generally more detailed than the woodcut versions, as seen for example in the treatment of the skies and water expanses. The British Museum’s volume does not include the poems and other texts, although most of the prints are inscribed (below the image), probably by Ripa himself, in Chinese transliteration and in Italian. Ripa came to England in 1724, where he was received by King George I, and was no doubt introduced to London society. It has been suggested that these engravings by Ripa influenced the emergence in the eighteenth century of the landscape or natural style of gardening, which was associated with William Kent, Burlington’s protégé. See Basil Gray, ‘Lord Burlington and Father Ripa’s Chinese engravings’, The British Museum Quarterly, vol.22, no1/2, London: British Museum, 1960, pp. 40-43; Patrick Connor ‘Art History’ II 1979, pp.429 ff, ‘China and the landscape garden’, plus comment by J.B.Bury, ibid, II 1980 p.470-1; David Jacques, ‘On the supposed Chineseness of the English Landscape Garden’, ‘Garden History’, Vol.18., No.2 (Autumn, 1990, pp. 180-191).
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