Page 91 - A Re-examination of Late Qing Dynasty Porcelain, 1850-1920 THESIS

Cixi, who was not the emperor, commissioned the porcelain. She imbedded her own

symbolism within the porcelain itself and was the imperial representative who oversaw

these artistic endeavors. Cixi also played a major role in selecting whom the emperors

married, even having disagreements with Tongzhi when he decided to marry a woman

the empress dowager did not favor. Viewed together, these elements indicate that despite

the Grand Wedding establishing the new emperor’s power, the driving force behind these

movements was the empress dowager, who created an underlying message of her

complete control of the Forbidden City.

A close visual connection is apparent between the empress dowager’s dayazhai

wares and the wares commissioned for Tongzhi’s wedding. The close stylistic

similarities and the historic records indicate that the wares were produced around 1872.

The similarity between these two styles creates a pattern of transition over time, with the

empress dowager’s aesthetic evolving over her time as a patron of porcelain. When

Cixi’s son, the Tongzhi Emperor, was married, she commissioned a total of 10 sets of

wedding porcelain for the occasion from the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen. The records

from the industrial production of the Imperial Household Department indicate that 24

forms were ordered in a variety of different patterns, comprising dining wares and utility

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wares totaling approximately 7,294 pieces. As observed in the dayazhai wares, the
Tongzhi wedding porcelain was decorated based on provided painted designs. In this

regard, it appears that the design of the Tongzhi wedding porcelain followed a process

93 Longsdorf, “The Tongzhi Imperial Wedding Porcelain,” 70. To date ten of these porcelain
patterns have been confirmed. Records indicate that a 10,072-piece wedding set was
commissioned by the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu) for the Tongzhi Emperor.
Currently 3,019 pieces from this set reside in the Palace Museum’s collection. For further
information, see Chen Shen and Wen-chien Cheng, “Making ‘The Forbidden City’: An
Introduction to the Exhibition,” Orientations 45, no. 4 (2014): 71.
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