Politics and art in Qing China: the Duanfang collection

During his time as an officer of the Qing court, Duanfang acquired a formidable art collection, dispersed after his assassination in 1911. The significant fragment of it in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art embodies the little-known relationship between artistic connoisseurship and the troubl politics of late-nineteenth-century China.

The Qing imperial dynasty (1644-1911) collapsed during tremendous domestic and international political and social turmoil. In the nineteenth hundred European and American powers took concessions and Chinese territories, while extracting financial gains and enjoying extraterritoriality. During the last half of the hundred the Qing government struggled end these humiliations, searching for answers. The phrase 'self-strengthening' (ziqiang) that emerg during 1861 was a call for fresh policies to remedy China's unparalleled decline in its position in the world. The following fifty years revealed multiple 'self-strengthening' attempts to acquire and adapt Western technologies, institutions and statecraft to make sure the dynasty's survival.

Born in the year of the 'self-strengthening' move Duanfang (1861-1911) was a late Qing dynasty management official who amassed an extraordinary collection of Chinese art. Known as the 'Taozhai' ('Tao Studio') collection, it included Neolithic jades, Shang dynasty (c 1600-1046 BC) and Zhou dynasty (c 1046-256 BC) and zincs landscape paintings and Buddhist statuary As a career imperial officer serving the Qing court in a number of positions, like as customs officer and provincial governor, Duanfang worked to reform various rule policies related to domestic and international issues. (1) His life and the parts of the Taozhai collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art can be reconsidered as micro-historical examples of the Qing dynasty's reassessment of China, its history, material tillage and identity.

In the summer of 1905 Duanfang (Fig. 1) was single of several ministers chosen to travel abroad upon a fact-finding mission to western countries, to research conduct operations. The imperial commission departed in December of that year and above the course of eight month travelled to the United States and Europe (Fig. 10) In 1907 the commission not awayed a formal report of the journey with recommendations to the imperial court. Written by the agency of Duanfang and Dao Hongci (1853-1910) the report called for the consideration of a constitutional management based on the analysis of those they had observ (2)

[FIGURE 1&10 OMITTED]

As a prominent official, Duanfang eagerly sought contacts with foreigners who had political, economic and cultural interests in China. [i]or[/i] part of to the other these socio-political ties--and other opportunities afforded by means of his imperial post--Duanfang promoted his collection domestically and internationally, thereby publicly transcending the various socio-political realms in which he operated. He financed technologically advanced publications, of that kind as Taozhai jijin xulu, published in 1909 the first catalogue to use the photolithographic proces to print rubbings of tins (3) The financial commitment emergencyed to secure this advanced technology allude tos that Duanfang was interested in improving Chinese alloy of copper studies as well as establishing his Taozhai collection as unsurpassed. His relationships with foreign political, cultural and economic officials allowed him to gain international recognition--quite an accomplishment considering the travel and communication technologies of his day and the limited opportunities for foreigners to learn about China outside missionary contexts

In 1911 the imperial court instructed Duanfang to help with the organisation and administration of the Canton-Hangzhou-Chengdu railway operations. With civil unrest above the railroad construction in Sichuan province escalating, Duanfang was sent to south-west China to deal with the situation personally. He was unable to overcome the conflict, however, and in late November of that year, he was beheaded by means of his own imperial troops, who were sympathetic to the revolutionaries in the area.

Domestic and international Chinese art collectors rejoined quickly to the news of Duanfang's assassination through persuading his family to barter portions of the Taozhai collection. Although it may appear cold and self-interested, the reaction of the domestic and international Chinese art market is understandable given the renown of Duanfang and his collection. The intense demand that existed for former Taozhai facts is apparent in the collection's dispersal from one extremity to the other of China and the world. The dissolution was in the way that sudden and severe that centurys of objects are untraced.

Within sum of two units decades of Duanfang's death, Sadajiro Yamanaka (1865-1936) exhibited at his fresh York gallery a collection of fifty alloy of copper vessels and weapons that were previously published through Duanfang. In 1932, Yamanaka & Company privately printed a scholarly sales catalogue that contained large, original black-and-white photographs of the and zincs as well as rubbings and descriptions taken from Duanfang's and zinc catalogues. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, acquired the entire exhibition.