Quick Answer: Who Was Emperor Qianlong?
The Qianlong emperor (乾隆帝, Qiánlóng Dì) was a Qing ruler who took the throne in 1735, abdicated in 1796 and remained influential until his death in 1799. His court expanded the empire through military campaigns and assembled major collections of art and books.[1][2][3][4][6][8]
- Reign: Qianlong was the reign name. Its first calendar year was 1736.
- Empire: His forces conquered territories in Inner Asia. The campaigns brought extensive violence and displacement.
- Art: Court workshops made portraits and works commemorating imperial campaigns. The palace catalogued older paintings and calligraphy.
- Books: Scholars collected and copied thousands of titles, while the court suppressed works it judged objectionable.[1][2][3][4][5][6][8][9]
A mark or inscription added by the Qianlong court can be much later than the object it appears on.
An eighteenth-century engraving in the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows a Qing battle in Inner Asia. The emperor commissioned the series, artists in Beijing made the designs, engravers in France produced the plates and merchants in Guangzhou paid for plates and printed sets to be sent to China. The print connects the court’s account of a military victory with the practical work of artists and merchants far from the battlefield.[4]
Accession, Reign and Abdication
Qianlong’s personal name was Hongli (弘历, Hónglì). He succeeded his father in 1735, with the Qianlong era beginning in 1736. His long reign came after the reigns of his grandfather, the Kangxi emperor, and his father. He inherited a Qing dynasty able to direct substantial resources to military and cultural projects.[1][2]
In 1796 he passed the throne to his son, the Jiaqing emperor (嘉庆, Jiāqìng). The formal change of reign did not immediately remove the older ruler from government. Qianlong retained considerable influence as retired emperor until his death in 1799. The dates of his accession, first reign year and retirement describe three different events.[1][2]
Expansion and the Battle Prints
In the 1750s Qing armies defeated the Dzungars (准噶尔, Zhǔngá’ěr) and extended control over territory in what is now Xinjiang. The campaigns devastated Dzungar communities. Historians describe organized killing by Qing forces as part of that destruction. The court later commissioned images that selected which moments of the campaigns should be shown and remembered.[3][4]
The Battle of Tonguzluq engraving is one of sixteen prints commissioned in 1765 to commemorate the victories. The series used designs made by Jesuit artists in Beijing and was engraved in France. The surviving print shows what the court chose to commemorate. The scale of the suffering and the course of the campaigns require other evidence.[3][4]
Portraits, Paintings and Imperial Seals
A portrait in the Smithsonian depicts Qianlong as Manjushri, the bodhisattva associated with wisdom. A sword and a text appear among the emblems around the seated emperor. The background reflects collaboration between Chinese and Tibetan artists working for the court. The portrait associates the Qing ruler with an image recognizable in Tibetan Buddhist visual culture. It is an example of how imperial workshops worked across traditions, including the wider world of Chinese Buddhism.[5]
The palace also organized earlier Chinese paintings and calligraphy. The Shiqu Baoji (石渠宝笈, Shíqú Bǎojí) was an imperial catalogue whose first compilation was completed in 1745. A continuation completed in 1793 recorded further holdings. The catalogue and the seals offer different ways to follow an object through the collection. An impression from a Qianlong seal could mark a later encounter with an older work. Read the original signature, later inscriptions and collector seals as separate clues when tracing an object’s history.[6][7]
Collecting Books and Controlling Texts
The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (四库全书, Sìkù Quánshū) brought together thousands of titles under imperial direction. The compilers grouped works into classics, histories, philosophical and specialized writings, and literary collections. Seven sets were copied by hand and placed in different libraries, including an imperial library inside the Forbidden City.[8]
The process also gave the court a way to examine books circulating beyond its libraries. It suppressed writings regarded as politically objectionable, and some works were destroyed or altered. The compilation preserved a large selection of texts. Omissions could result from the scope of the collection as well as from censorship. Evidence of an order to suppress a work tells us more about its treatment than absence from a catalogue alone.[8][9]
How to Read Qianlong’s Cultural Legacy
Consider the evidence each object adds. A seal can help connect a painting to the imperial collection. The engraver’s marks can trace a court commission to a workshop outside China. An entry in a book catalogue can show where a text belonged in the palace’s classification. These distinctions explain why Qianlong appears among Chinese historical figures as both a ruler and a patron. His decisions shaped which objects and texts reached later readers, and in what form.[4][6][7][8][9]
FAQs About Emperor Qianlong
When did the Qianlong emperor reign?
He took the throne in 1735, the Qianlong era began in 1736 and he abdicated in 1796. He continued to exert influence as retired emperor until 1799.[1][2]
Why do Qianlong’s seals appear on older paintings?
The court added seals to works that entered or were examined in the imperial collection. A seal can record later ownership or appreciation, so its date may differ from the date of the artwork.[6][7]
What was the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries?
It was a Qing court compilation of thousands of texts grouped into four categories. Scholars selected and edited the works, and the court had seven handwritten sets made for separate libraries.[8][9]
資料來源
[1] Columbia University Asia for Educators. The Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors
[2] The Palace Museum. The Qianlong Emperor
[3] The Cambridge World History of Genocide. The Qing Extermination of the Zünghars
[4] The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Battle of Tonguzluq
[5] Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art. The Qianlong Emperor as Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom
[6] The Palace Museum. Shiqu Baoji
[7] The Palace Museum. Qianlong’s Three Rarities Studio Seals
[8] UC Berkeley C. V. Starr East Asian Library. The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries
[9] Library Trends. The Complete Library of Four Treasures