Page 69 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

54 Kate Hill
shown that hostility toward China was tempered by interest in exhibitions of
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Chinese art and culture; Tythacott has looked in-depth at sacred artifacts acquired
by Captain William Edie and new roles imposed on these objects at the Great
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Exhibition of 1851; and Hevia has shown how post-war “Summer Palace” displays
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affirmed victory through debasement of the emperor’s possessions. Against that
background, this article examines how spoils informed Victorian design. As noted
by Pearce in the previous chapter, since provenance of items linked with the estate
is difficult to prove, connections rest on circumstantial evidence and comparisons
with objects in Chinese imperial collections.

Art and Industry Exhibitions
The first industrial art exhibitions featuring objects linked with the Yuanmingyuan
occurred in museums. In 1861, campaign leaders General Sir James Hope Grant
(1808–1875) and James Bruce, the 8th Earl of Elgin (1811–1863), loaned objects
through the South Kensington Museum (SKM) to the Bristol Exhibition of Industrial
and Ornamental Art and the Exhibition of Industrial and Decorative Art, Edinburgh.
The Western Daily Press rhapsodized at Bristol: “Sir Hope Grant has likewise liberally
given his unrivalled collection from China, which will be further augmented by spoils
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taken in the recent expedition from the Summer Palace at Pekin.” The Caledonian
Mercury reported at Edinburgh: “articles of vertu taken by the conquerors from the
Summer Palace at Pekin.” 8
What “Summer Palace” material actually appeared is unclear. J. H. Chalmers loaned
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pieces “looted at Pekin” or “from the Summer Palace.” Enamels from Lord Wharn -
cliffe (1827–1899) had no provenance; 10 but his “Pair of large cisterns, enamelled
with deep blue ground, flowers, etc.” match two cisterns he loaned to an 1874 exhib -
ition: “gilt metal, covered with cloisonné enamel of dark blue, with bold designs of
flowers. Chinese; from the Summer Palace.” 11 The Bristol catalogue does not name
Elgin or specify Grant’s loans, but mentions “an unrivalled collection from China and
Japan, obtained in great measure during the late war, at the taking of the Summer
Palace, Pekin.” 12 The Edinburgh catalogue lists 85 loans from Grant, 31 from Elgin,
but attributes only two Grant loans to “the Summer Palace” and “the Palace, Pekin.” 13
Several factors suggest that Elgin and Grant loaned more than two pieces “from the
Summer Palace.” The 1861 museum loan register did not ascribe any Elgin pieces this
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provenance, including a “crutch in wood mounted in bronze gilt and engraved”; but
a reporter later remarked at his home: “A crutch with a gold head, used by the Emperor
of China . . . found in the Summer Palace, Pekin in 1860.” 15 Accounts of the looting
cited pairs of crutches about the estate as evidence of the emperor’s frailty. 16 As for
Grant’s pieces, the register assigned a handful to the “Summer Palace,” but the prov -
enance of the well-known golden ewer looted from the estate and presented to Grant
by his men—mentioned by Pearce in Chapter 3 and discussed in depth by McLoughlin
in Chapter 7—was given only as “China Pekin October 1860.” 17 A substantial lapis
lazuli carving from Grant was catalogued for both shows without provenance, 18 but
he later wrote “I also bought a fine carving of lapis lazuli” at the auction of spoils. 19
While the quantity of spoils is uncertain, their significance for curators is evident.
They were not grouped in triumphal displays but organized by material and technique
with SKM traveling collections to inform the tastes of visitors. William B. Johnstone
(1804–1868) wrote that Edinburgh sponsors sought: