Page 79 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

64 Kate Hill
Conclusion
The British soldiers who looted the Yuanmingyuan might have been surprised to learn
that some of their treasure would soon be mounted for display in the cause of design
reform. Possibly campaign leaders felt compelled to “share” spoils through loans. Their
victory also suggested market opportunities that demanded saleable products. This is
not to condemn eastward-looking trends in design reform as manifestations of
imperialist capitalism. The political response to Chinese spoils was largely tempered
by interest in Chinese design. World dominance also brought challenges to notions
of Western supremacy, spurring artistic innovation and emulation of Chinese tech -
niques and styles. Dresser remarked:

if we are to continue to hold a permanent place as a manufacturing people, we
must step down from that haughty pinnacle of self-esteem on which we have
so often placed ourselves during recent years and be content both to learn from
others who are better informed than ourselves. . . . 97

In the case of China, the public was open-minded enough to embrace the arts of a
defeated enemy. Credit is largely due, though, to Chinese artists and their creations
that won over the British when victory seemed to affirm everything for which their
empire stood.

Notes
1 “Exhibition of Industrial Art in the National Gallery,” Caledonian Mercury, November
12, 1861; “Exhibition of Industrial and Ornamental Art,” Western Daily Press, July 26,
1861; “Art Exhibition,” Hull Packet and East Reading Times, January 24, 1862;
“Hull School of Art Exhibition,” Hull Packet and East Reading Times, February 7,
1862; “Annual Conversazione of the School of Art,” Sheffield Independent, January
22, 1862; “Mechanics’ Institute Exhibition,” Bucks Herald, April 4, 1863; “The 12th
Regiment—Industrial Exhibition,” Dublin Evening Mail, January 13, 1864; “The Field-
Day and Industrial Exhibition at Aldershot,” Morning Post, July 7, 1864; “The Dudley
Industrial Exhibition,” The Era, September 23, 1866; “Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Loan Exhibition,” Salisbury and Winchester Journal, July 28, 1866; “Frome Industrial
Exhibition,” Bristol Mercury, September 15, 1866; “Exhibition of Art and Industry in
Inverness,” Inverness Courier, September 19, 1867.
2 Nicky Levell, “The Crystal Palace at Sydenham: An Alhambra of Pleasure,” chap. 1 and
“The Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886,” chap. 2 in Oriental Visions: Exhibitions,
Travel, and Collecting in the Victorian Age (London: Horniman Museum and Gardens,
2000); Lara Kriegel, “Narrating the Subcontinent in 1851: India at the Crystal Palace,”
in The Great Exhibition of 1851: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Louise Purbrick,
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001); Francesca Vanke, “Degrees of Other -
ness: the Ottoman Empire and China at the Great Exhibition of 1851,” in Britain, the
Empire and the World at the Great Exhibition of 1851, ed. Jeffrey A. Auerbach and
Peter H. Hoffenberg (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008); Paul Young, “The Magic of the East,”
in Globalization and the Great Exhibition: The Victorian New World Order (Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 2009).
3 I want to thank Denis Pellerin, curator, Brian May Collection, for locating stereoviews
of the Chinese Court.
4 Catherine Pagani, “Chinese Material Culture and British Perceptions of China in the Mid-
Nineteeth Century,” in Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the
Museum, ed. Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (London: Routledge, 1998), 28–40.