2的补充20180831_Treasures of Time_SMG_Research Package_Chapter 4

Hong Kong Science Museum Treasures of Time ExhibitonIVEXCHANGEChapters I-III have explored the design and production of English sing-songs created for the Chinese market. But how did the sing-songs end up in the collections of the Palace Museum? This final chapter will trace the remarkable journey of sing-songs from England to the Imperial Palace in Beijing. It will begin by exploring the origins of the Imperial interest in mechanical clockwork in seventeenth-century China before describing the details of the trade between Britain and China. The chapter will conclude with an overview of the native clock and watch making industry which emerged in China in the eighteenth century.ORIGINS OF THE SING-SONG TRADEEmergence of the Chinese Interest in Mechanical ClockworkIn 1601, the Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (15521610) presented a selection of gifts to the Ming Emperor Wanli (ruled 15731620). Ricci was the first European Jesuit to arrive in China, along with Michele Ruggierei, in 1583. His offering to the Emperor included a variety of Western technological goods, including maps, globes and two chiming mechanical clocks. This gift-giving exercise was an attempt to gain the favour of the Emperor as part of a mission to bring Christianity to the people of China. The clocks turned out to be a great success: Wanli loved them. In his book Description of the Empire of China (17381741) French historian of the Jesuit missions Jean-Baptiste Du Halde remarked on the Emperors reception of the clocks:“It is well known, as I have elsewhere mentioned, that P. Ricci owed the favourable Admission he obtained into the Emperors Court to a clock and a repeating Watch, of which he made a Present to the Prince, who was so much charmed with it that he built a magnificent Tower purposely to place the Clock in; and because the Queen-Mother had a desire for a watch of the same kind, the Emperor, who was loth to part with it, had recourse to a Strategum, by ordering the Watch to be shewn to her, without winding up the striking Part, so that not finding it according to her Fancy, she might send it back again, as in effect she did. They did fail afterwards to gratify the Emperors Taste, by sending for great Quantities of this sort of Works. The Christian Princes, who had the Conversion of this great Empire at Heart, assisted the Missionaries very liberally, so that the Emperors cabinet was soon filled with all sorts of clocks, most of which were of the newest Invention, and most curious workmanship.” Quoted in Catherine Pagani, Eastern Magnificence & European Ingenuity: Clocks of Late Imperial China (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2001), p.31.Following his encounter with the Wanli Emperor, Ricci was appointed as a scientific advisor to the Imperial Court. He went on to play a significant role in the introduction of Western science and technology to China, through his teachings on Western astronomy, cartography, mathematics, artillery and clock making. Riccis journals were published in Rome in 1615, five years after his death, bringing the story of his experiences in China to the European public. His successful use of mechanical clocks to gain an audience with, and the favour of, Chinas ruler soon spread across Europe, sparking a long tradition of European missionaries and embassies gifting Western-made clocks and watches to the Chinese Emperors.Matteo Ricci (on left) with Hs Kuang-chI, a Chinese scholar and statesman known to have converted to Christianity. Etching in Johannes Nieuhofs An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperor of China (London: 1673). British Museum. SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: British Museum - /research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3757939&partId=1&searchText=matteo+ricci&page=1 Imperial interest in mechanical clockwork continued to thrive at the Qing court (16441912). As rulers of non-Han descent, the Qing Emperors had to work particularly hard to ensure that the Chinese population saw them as legitimate rulers of the Empire. The Kangxi Emperor (ruled 16621722) sought respect and authority by cultivating a comprehensive understanding of the arts and sciences. He developed a keen interest in Western science, technology and medicine and stationed many Jesuits at his court to teach him about Western physics, chemistry, medicine, geometry, astronomy, cartography, mathematics, astronomy, horology, artillery and scientific instrument-making. For Kangxi, this accumulation of worldly knowledge was a political tool, enhancing his position as omniscient ruler, however it was also a personal passion project. He gave each of his children a number of chiming clocks as presents, hoping that they might inherit his fascination with Western science and technology, and maintain its presence at Court. Pagani, Eastern Magnifecence, p.60.While Kangxi initiated a Qing-dynasty collection of mechanical clockwork and his son Yongzheng (ruled 17221735) founded the horological workshops at the Imperial Palace (of which more later), it was the Qianlong Emperor (ruled 17361795) who showed the greatest interest in European sing-songs, amassing the majority of the extensive collection owned by the Palace Museum today. Qianlong was a prodigious collector and he acquired an extraordinary variety of artistic and decorative objects during his sixty-year reign. Like his grandfather Kangxi, Qianlong spent his life carefully constructing an identity as a legitimate ruler of China. His collection was an important part of his self-projection, with every object selected to convey a message. The majority of objects in his collection were either traditional Chinese works of art and ritual objects, conveying his affinity with Chinese tradition and values, or items which made a statement about his political goals as Emperor. In 1793 the first diplomatic embassy from Britain arrived in China. Led by George Lord Macartney (17371806), the embassy sought to negotiate a treaty which would facilitate improvements in trade between Britain and China. The embassy brought a grand collection of gifts from King George III which represented the best of British manufacture for presentation to the Qianlong Emperor, including a number of fine English clocks and watches. The Emperor rejected the gifts, famously telling the embassy:“The virtue and power of the celestial dynasty has penetrated afar the myriad kingdoms, which have come to render homage, so all kinds of precious things have been collected here, things which your chief envoy and others have seen for themselves. Nevertheless we have never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of your countrys manufactures.” Quoted in Ian White, English Clocks for the Eastern Markets: English Clockmakers Trading in China & the Ottoman Empire 15801815 (Sussex: The Antiquarian Horological Society, 2012), p.317.Qianlongs statement encapsulates his philosophy of political collecting. By accumulating great quantities of luxury goods from across the world, he was demonstrating to his subjects, and to foreign competitors, that he and thus China possessed all the world had to offer; his power and knowledge could not be surpassed. In this context, Qianlongs interest in collecting European sing-songs can be interpreted as politically motivated. By collecting these quintessentially European objects, with their Western-made designs, music and mechanisms, it is likely that Qianlong was seeking to present his worldliness and international power. Joanna Waley-Cohen “Diplomats, Jesuits and Foreign Curiosities,” in China: The Three Emperors 16621795, eds. Evelyn S. Rawski and Jessica Rawson (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2005), pp.178207. Historian of horology Roger Smith echoes this sentiment, concluding that much of the appeal of European sing-songs “lay in the fact that they were clearly products of an exotic Western culture.” Roger Smith, “The Sing-Song Trade Exporting Clocks to China in the Eighteenth Century,” Antiquarian Horology 30, no.5 (March 2008), p658. Similarly, Catherine Pagani proposes that:“While he enjoyed them for their uniqueness in terms of both technology and design, their true appeal for him lay in their symbolic meaning. They represented the West and the Chinese Courts interest in Western things; but above all, in eighteenth-century China, Western-style elaborate clocks signified imperial power and wealth.” Pagani, Eastern Magnificence, p.97.Qianlongs collecting, spurred by his desire to project legitimacy, knew no bounds and by the mid-eighteenth century he had amassed a collection of thousands of European clocks, watches and automata. This accumulation of Western curiosities would have been quite impossible had it not been for the existence of an effective system of foreign trade. This system, which was well-established by Qianlongs reign, began its ascendency at the Chinese port of Macao in the second half of the seventeenth century.The Early Days of Trade Between Europe and ChinaPortugal was the first European nation to trade directly with China. From the 1570s, Portuguese merchants were permitted - under strict Chinese control - to exchange goods such as spices, tin and New World silver at the Chinese port of Macao. These goods were exchanged for exclusive Chinese luxury products such as tea, silk, textiles and porcelain which were transported back to Europe for sale.On 31 December 1599, the English East India Company was founded in London. A royal grant gave the Company a complete monopoly of all English trade with Asia, which remained in place until 1834. From 1600, the Dutch also began to vie for the Chinese market, further increasing the level of activity at Macao and adding to demand for Chinese goods in Europe. From the 1660s, English control over India expanded and a convenient three-way trade triangle was established between England, India and China. By the eighteenth century, the European demand for Chinese tea, silk, textiles and porcelain was insatiable. The import of Chinese luxury products had become an immense commercial enterprise costing Europe vast quantities of silver every year. In stark contrast, there were few European goods that appealed to the Chinese except for silver bullion. This provoked anxiety for East India Company merchants and the British government, who were concerned about the political and economic implications of the widening trade gap. This imbalance could only be resolved by the emergence of a European product which appealed to the Chinese. It would need to be something novel and exclusive which the Chinese did not already have; something the Europeans excelled at manufacturing; preferably something with a precedent of capturing the Chinese imagination. The answer was mechanical clockwork.THE BRITAIN-CHINA SING-SONG TRADEThe Journey East In the early eighteenth century, East India Company ships began to transport vast quantities of clocks, watches and automata to China. Officers were allocated a quota of storage space on East India Company ships for the transportation of their own private trade goods. The higher the position of an officer in the ships hierarchy, the more storage space he was entitled to. The vast majority of English sing-songs were transported as part of this private trade.As explored in Chapters IIII, the production of a sing-song was usually commissioned and managed by a producer-entrepreneur. The producer-entrepreneur was also responsible for negotiation with East India Company officers, to arrange for transportation and trade of their wares in China. Beginning in mid-winter each year, the voyage from Britain to China was long, usually taking around 612 months in each direction. Ships usually stopped off in India, where British items were replaced by Indian goods, such as spices and pepper, for sale in China. By the height of the sing-song trade in 17701771, 35% of all private trade on ships to China was made up of sing-songs. Smith, “The Sing-Song Trade,” p.637. As sing-songs were transported as private trade goods, shipments of sing-songs are not well documented in the surviving trade records, making it difficult to ascertain the overall scale of goods being transported annually. Roger Smith estimates that the real value of sing-songs bought in China from European ships may have reached over 100,000 every year (equivalent to around 900,000 today). Smith, “The Sing-Song Trade,” p.637.The long-distance journey presented a financial challenge to producer-entrepreneurs. The time between production and purchase was at least a year and there was no guarantee that the goods would sell once they reached China. The success of a shipment was only revealed upon the ships return to England, by which time the next batch of goods had to be ready for export to China. Producer-entrepreneurs therefore were forced to place orders before they had received payment or feedback from the previous shipment. To counter this risk, producer-entrepreneurs secured financial backers to support them and also commonly worked on long term credit with makers and officers. In China, East India Company officers exchanged sing-songs for Chinese currency which they transferred to Europe either through Company bills, or in Chinese goods which could be sold in Europe.The Canton SystemEast India Company ships departed from the port of London in England and sailed into the port of Canton (now known as Guangzhou) in China. Foreign traders were legally obliged to stay in the Thirteen Factories, a series of buildings on the banks of the Pearl River which Europeans rented from selected Chinese merchants. Each trading nation had its own settlement within the Factories, with the flutter of flags signalling the occupancy of each building. Englishman William Hickey visited Canton as an East India Company cadet in 17691770. His diary provides a detailed description of the Thirteen Factories and their residents at this time:“About half a mile above the City suburbs, in going from Whampoa, is a wharf, or embankment, regularly built of brick and mortar, extending more than half a mile in length, upon which wharf stands the different factories or places of residence of the Supercargoes, each factor having the flag of its nation on a lofty ensign staff before it. At the time I was in China they stood in the following order. First, the Dutch, then, the French, the English, the Swedes, and last, the Danes. Each of these factories, besides admirable banqueting, or public rooms for eating, &c., have attached to them sets of chambers, varying in size according to the establishment. The English being far more numerous than any other trading nation with China, their range of buildings is much the most extensive. Each supercargo has four handsome rooms; the public apartments are in front looking to the river; the others go inland to the depth of two or three hundred feet, in broad courts, having the sets of rooms on each side, every set having a distinct and separate entrance with a small garden, and every sort of convenience. Besides the factories which belong to the East India Company there are also others, the property of Chinese, who let them to European and Country Captains of ships, merchants and strangers whom business brings to Canton. For several years there has been an Imperial flag flying before a factory occupied by the Germans. The Americans (whom the Chinese distinguish by the expressive title of second chop Englishmen) have also a flag. The number of supercargoes employed by the East India Company in the year 1769 was twelve, but when we arrived there were only eleven residents, one being in Europe for the recovery of his health.” Craig Clunas, Chinese Export Watercolours (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1984), p14.After the tea-shipping season finished in March each year, it was compulsory for Europeans to leave Canton. Many traders returned to their home countries, while others went on vacation to the permanent Portuguese settlement of Macao for the summer.Etching of the Thirteen Factories in Canton, from Dr John Truslers The Habitable World Described, 1789. British Museum. SOURCE FOR LICENSE ARRANGEMENT: British Museum - /research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?searchText=canton%20factories&ILINK|34484,|assetId=1613040797&objectId=3682742&partId=1From the early 1700s, all foreign traders in China were required to trade exclusively with government-appointed Chinese merchants known collectively as the cohong, and individually as hong merchants. There were thirteen hong merchants working in Canton at any one time, and they were led by an official known to Westerners as the “Hoppo”. The cohongs core responsibilities were to collect the heavy import tax levied on foreign traders and to “ensure proper conduct in the matter of prices, weights and measures and quality” Ng Chin-keong, Boundaries and Beyond: Chinas Maritime Southeast in Late Imperial Times (Singapore: NUS Press, 2017), p.299. They were also responsible for the management of all foreign traders and were held personally accountable for any problems they caused while in China. John K. Fairbank describes the diverse role of the hong merchants: “They not only settled prices, sold goods, guaranteed duties, restrained the foreigners, negotiated with them, controlled smuggling, and leased the factories to them; they also had to manage all the aspects of a banking business, act as interpreting agencies, support the militia and educational institutions, and make all manner of presents and contributions to the authorities near and far” Quoted in Chin-keong, Boundaries and Beyond, p.308.Kn