polity qing dynastyqing dynasty
One Hundred Horses
Handscroll by Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining) (Qing Dynasty, 1728 CE). Ink and colour on silk; National Palace Museum, Taipei. A monumental 7.76-metre handscroll depicting 100 horses in a mountain landscape, combining European academic three-dimensional modelling of equine anatomy with Chinese silk medium and scroll format. Commissioned by the Yongzheng Emperor. The most celebrated surviving work of Castiglione's Sino-European hybrid painting practice.
Scholarly Significance
Castiglione's masterwork: the most celebrated Sino-European hybrid painting of the Qing imperial court; foundational document of cross-cultural artistic exchange.
Notes
- ·Commissioned by the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1722-1735) who was particularly interested in horses from Central Asia and Mongolia.
- ·Castiglione spent three years (1725-1728) working on this scroll — the most elaborate single commission of his career.
- ·Each horse is anatomically distinct — different breeds, colours, and postures — modelled with European chiaroscuro shading applied in Chinese pigments on silk.
- ·The landscape setting and mountain background is painted in a Chinese manner (no Western perspective recession), while the horse anatomy is thoroughly European.
- ·The hybrid style was specifically developed for Qing court taste: the emperor valued Western accuracy in depicting the horses' musculature while expecting Chinese format and mounting.
- ·Considered Castiglione's masterpiece; the most prominent example of Sino-European artistic exchange in Chinese art history.