Yuanjin quansheng (Sounds of a Spring Near and Far) from the Bishu shanzhuang series.

£8,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

“Perceiving that I had made some progress in the art of engraving, his Majesty resolved to have prints of thirty-six different views taken from the residence of Je-hol [ Re-he ] built by himself. Accordingly, I went there with the Chinese painters whom he had ordered to make the drawings and I thus had an opportunity to see the whole grounds, a distinguished favour which had never yet been conferred on any other European.” (Ripa: Memoirs of Father Ripa, during thirteen years’ residence at the court of Peking in the service of the emperor of China. London, 1844, p.72). Father Matteo Ripa (1682-1746), was sent to China as a missionary by the Propaganda Fide. Between 1711 and 1723 he worked as a painter and copper-engraver at the court of the Kangxi Emperor. Ripa accompanied the Emperor on several of the annual hunting expeditions during which they would inevitably visit the ‘Mountain Retreat to Escape the Heat’ ( Bishu shanzhuang ) a huge garden complex located on the Rehe River (Jehol, now Chengde) some 200km north of Peking. It functioned as a base for hunting expeditions as well as a palace for receiving visitors from Manchuria and the periphery of the empire (Lord Macartney also travelled there in 1793). Construction of the park commenced in 1703 and by 1712 some 36 scenes and palaces buildings had been built in an area covering around 2.2 square miles. Each of these scenes was named in groups of four characters. The emperor decided to celebrate the occasion with a palace e

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