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Yuanmingyuan on Display 163
“Yuanmingyuan Items in the Collection of the Palace of Fontainebleau,” Arts of Asia.
Vol. 38, no. 3 (May-June 2008): 101–117; and Alison McQueen, “Power and Patronage:
Empress Eugénie and the Musée Chinois,” in Twenty-First-Century Perspectives on
Nineteenth-Century Art: Essays in Honor of Gabriel P. Weisberg, ed. Petra ten-Doesschate
Chu and Laurinda S. Dixon (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008), 153–161.
3 Thomas, “Looting,” at note 63.
4 Thomas, “Looting,” at note 66; and Béatrice Quette, ed., Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels
from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties (New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2011),
55. I also thank Susan Naquin for advice on this point.
5 On the stupa and its Tibetan Buddha statue, see Samoyault-Verlet, Musée chinois, 68–71;
on its provenance, see Thomas, “Looting,” at note 67. On the tapestries, see Samoyault-
Verlet, Musée Chinois, 70–72; and Vincent Droguet, “Le salon des Laques de l’impératrice
Eugénie,” in Château de Fontainebleau: Le cabinet de Travail de Napoléon III, eds.
Vincent Cochet et al. (Dijon: Editions Faton, 2013), 102–125; 124, n. 11. On cloisonné
temple objects, see Quette, Cloisonné, 8–13, 30–61. On the Yonghegong matching altar
set, see Liu Yang, Shei shou cang le Yuanmingyuan [Who Collects Yuanmingyuan]
(Beijing: Jincheng chubanshe, 2013), 164.
6 The accompanying article (p. 139) characterizes the Chinese weapons and armor as
“bizarre” and impractical, while praising the enamel of the six large cloisonné vessels
(one of which is not depicted in the print) for having “the most beautiful color and a
handsome decorative look” (“du plus beau ton et d’un bel aspect décoratif”).
7 “French Spoils from China Recently Exhibited at the Palace of the Tuileries,” Illustrated
London News. Vol. 38, April 13, 1861, 334; reproduced on MIT Visualizing Cultures
website:ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/garden_perfect_brightness_03/ymy3_gallery_1.
html; accessed August 2015.
8 For the full text, see Che Bing Chiu, Yuanming Yuan: Le jardin de la Clarté parfaite
(Besançon: Les Editions de l’Imprimeur, 2000), 11–12.
9 Le Monde illustré, 139: “trois figures assises et entourées d’auréoles.”
10 J. W. de Jong, A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and America (Tokyo: Kosei
Publishing, 1997); and Mark S. Lussier, Romantic Dharma: The Emergence of Buddhism
into Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), especially
49–53.
11 J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Du Bouddhisme (Paris: Benjamin Duprat, 1855), 248. “Le
seul, mais immense service que le Bouddhisme puisse nous rendre, c’est, par son triste
contraste, de nous faire apprécier mieux encore la valeur inestimable de nos croyances . . .”
12 “Des curiosités chinoises exposées aux Tuileries,” Gazette des beaux-arts. Vol. 9, no. 6
(March 15, 1861): 363–369. He comments that most visitors don’t judge Chinese art
fairly.
13 Pauthier, “Des curiosités chinoises:” “les conservateurs de musée impérial de Yuen-ming-
Yuen”; “un bracelet bouddhique;” “employée dans les cérémonies bouddhiques” (all 368);
and “une longue inscription bouddhique” (369). He does not mention the Buddha
tapestries.
14 Inventaire des objets composant le Musée Chinois créé en 1863 par S. M. L’Impératrice
au Palais de Fontainebleau, 1865, Musée chinois archives, item no. 19985.
15 His wife’s porcelain collection was catalogued by expert Albert Jacquemart in 1862:
Catalogue descriptif et raisonné . . . composant la collection de Madame Malinet
(Paris: Renou et Maulde, 1862). Charles Pillet says Malinet’s shop attracted everyone
interested in Asian art; Catalogue d’estampes anciennes . . . composant la collection
de feu M. Malinet (Paris: Maurice Delestre, 1887), i-vii. Malinet’s own estate sale listed
50 Chinese porcelains, 13 Chinese and Japanese bronzes, eight lacquers, one jade, and
one cloisonné; Catalogue des objets d’art et de curiosité . . . (Paris: Drouot, 1886).
16 Quette, Cloisonné, xiv.
17 Chang Wan-Chen argues that the objects in porcelain, jade, and other materials were in
fact very valuable in Chinese terms, and points out that Théodore Duret praised their
quality in 1871; “Yuanmingyuan Items,” 110–112.
18 E.g. David Duff, Eugenie and Napoleon III (New York: William Morrow and Company,
1978), Chapter 16; Alison McQueen, Empress Eugénie and the Arts: Politics and Visual