Page 174 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

Yuanmingyuan on Display 159

Figure 10.4 One of the two cloisonné and gold altar vases that was converted into a
candelabra. Visible on the left is one of the eighteenth-century lacquer panels
with its two nineteenth-century ebony borders depicting tree peonies and
phoenixes above and dragons below. To the right is the edge of the large
wooden cabinet. Photo by Greg Thomas, 2012. © Fontainebleau, Château.

and power. There are different dragons for the black and gold panels, but both are
rendered again in chinoiserie fashion, resembling Europe’s two-legged, snake-like
dragons more than the four-legged, thick-bodied types found in Chinese art.
Considering Ruprich-Robert’s specialized expertise in ornament, and floral orna -
ment in particular, he surely took these patterns seriously, as key elements in creating
a unified design for the entire room. And Albert Jacquemart, cataloguing Mrs.
Malinet’s porcelain collection, wrote that “no Oriental vase is free of meaning.” 43
So at least to experts like Ruprich-Robert and Malinet, the museum’s ornament would
have been important both aesthetically and symbolically. Symbolically, these borders
clearly reference emperors and empresses, conveying a common status—a common
cosmological importance—between the old and new owners of the Yuanmingyuan
collection. Aesthetically, the borders hark back to eighteenth-century chinoiserie
lacquer furniture while harmonizing with their Chinese originals. They also echo
ornaments on the altar set, including energetic long dragons and chrysanthemums
(see Figure 10.4) Ruprich-Robert said ornament was characteristic of a people and
key to a unified design ensemble; Meyer’s borders managed to capture and harmonize
both Qing imperial art and the ancien régime art that Eugénie sought to invoke.
The second major design technique was the creation of wooden shelves and
cabinets with Chinese characteristics. One of the craftsmen responsible was Henri