Page 94 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

“True Beauty of Form and Chaste Embellishment” 79
of the nineteenth century. Quite a few of these came out of the Summer Palace and
were acquired by soldiers and officials such as Henry Brougham Loch (1827–1900),
Secretary to Lord Elgin at the time of the 1860 embassy to China—as discussed by
Hill in Chapter 4—who formed a collection of famille rose, 39 as well as individuals
who had no association with the military such as George Salting (1835–1909) whose
collection of mainly Qing porcelains was on display in the V&A from 1874 and
eventually given by bequest in 1910. Other collectors still favored export wares, such
as Richard Bennett (1844–1900) and Joseph Mayer (1803–1886). 40 The Summer
Palace pieces became, therefore, an additional type of vessel-based porcelain to collect
at the time but not the dominant one.

Collecting Fragments

A somewhat different type of Chinese ceramic clearly did become more popular among
collectors shortly after the plunder of the Summer Palace. These pieces are different
because they are not vessels, nor are they made of porcelain for the most part. In
fact, most of these so-called “ceramics” are actually fragments, either of buildings
or the decorative features of buildings. Today, you will find such fragments openly
displayed in most galleries of “Chinese art” outside China. They are presented as
representing China’s architectural traditions and/or as structural elements of Chinese
art, such as fragments of tomb murals or Buddhist paintings from the walls of caves
at Dunhuang, for example. If these fragments are at all considered separately, which
in fact is quite rare, they are interpreted as Chinese “material culture” or in some
cases as examples of what is perceived as the insidious early twentieth-century practice
of destructive collecting that is exemplified by Dunhuang material. 41 However, in the
context of “Chinese art”, the collecting of architectural fragments and remains has
a history that predates the twentieth century. In fact, the transformation of such items
into saleable and collectible “art” objects begins to occur shortly after the plunder
and destruction of the Summer Palace in 1860.
The practical details of this event have been discussed at length but certain key
features are important to understand for the development of the collecting of archi -
tectural fragments thereafter. First, the presence of foreign military in China because
of the Opium Wars beginning in 1839 meant that there was deliberate destruction
of buildings for political and psychological reasons. The architectural fragments
resulting were, thus, in a sense souvenirs and trophies but also like the other booty
from later destructive and vengeful activities in China, they came to be sold and
thus began to acquire a market value. These items were also sold in the “art/curio”
market that was greatly stimulated (in China) by the Summer Palace events, as we
have seen. The fragments thus gained further relative value as “collectibles,” even if
they were such things as tiles or bricks. But the Summer Palace object sales were
merely a catalyst for the marketing of fragments in general as their re-classification
as “art” or “curios” encouraged the sale of other architectural fragments that emerged
through various means, including but not exclusively, deliberate destruction. As we
will see, fragments from the Ming tombs in Nanjing were collected as well as the
so-called Porcelain Pagoda (Da Bao’ensi) both of which were severely damaged
during the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and the latter destroyed in the 1880s (see
Figure 5.3). 42