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8135 (detail)
Property of a Private American Collection
8135
Anonymous, An Informal Portrait of the Daoguang Emperor (1782-1850)
Early 19th Century
Ink and color on silk, now framed and glazed.
51 1/2 x 29 1/4in (130.8 x 74.3cm) sight
$50,000 - 70,000
無款 清朝皇室肖像 設色絹本 鏡框
Provenance: Unlike the formal ancestor portrait, the more casual portrait of the
acquired in China by an American missionary family before 1945 and emperor in a study, provides a window to the material culture and a
thence by descent to the present through a private family collection more personal glimpse of the individual. In the collection of the Palace
Museum Beijing there are also informal portraits of the Kangxi and
Donning his semi-formal court robes (jifu), the Daoguang emperor Jiaqing emperors, in similar poses and settings. The Qianlong emperor
(reigned 1821-1850) gazes unflinchingly as if to acknowledge the was depicted in numerous informal portraits often surrounded by his
presence of the viewer. The fur trim on his hat, cuffs and hem indicate a collection of antiquities, paintings, and books. The present portrait shows
winter setting, and the twelve symbols of imperial authority (five visible) less extravagance, but the Daoguang emperor was a man known for his
on his imperial yellow robe leave little doubt to his identity. Seated on a frugality, sometimes wearing court robes that had been patched.
raised dais and yellow cushion, the emperor has an open book placed
on a gilt lacquered low table, with ink stone and brushes at the ready. Whereas the depiction of the emperor as a learned and scholarly
Two low tables flank him, with fine porcelain, jades and an archaic individual would be a positive message to project, it was by no means an
bronze attest to his connoisseurship and erudition. Behind him hang long empty gesture. The Qing emperors prided themselves on their education.
panels of calligraphy in gold ink on indigo, although the text has not In fact the Daoguang emperor himself wrote of spending “over thirty
been identified, stylistically it is likely mimicking a passage written by the years” in the classrooms of the Palace set up for the education of young
Qianlong emperor, the sitter’s grandfather. princes and elite boys.
The Daoguang emperor--who used the personal name Minning, and A strikingly similar portrait of the Daoguang emperor seated in his
Manchurian name Doro Eldengge--was chosen as the heir apparent by his study is in the collection of the Palace Museum Beijing. It is nearly
father the Jiaqing emperor in 1799, after the hundred day mourning period identical, with the exception that it lacks the indigo and gold calligraphic
for the Qianlong emperor had passed. However, the selection of Minning as backdrop. On the issue of duplicates, see Jan Stuart and Evelyn
the heir was kept secret and not revealed until the Jiaqing Emperor was on RawskiWorshipping the Ancestors Chinese Commemorative Portraiture
his deathbed in 1820. As the sixth Qing emperor to rule of China, Minning Washington, 2001 pp. 104-111.
oversaw the early turbulence of the China’s difficult nineteenth century.
88 | Bonhams
