Imperial Album Zhigongtu vol 4.
Imperial album "Zhi Gong Tu", volume 4, China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795).
Painted in ink and color on silk, composed of twenty-six double-pages, the first two pages, in yellow-bottomed paper sprinkled with gold glitter, bearing three imperial tablets:
Wufuwudaitang guxi tianzi bao;
Bazheng Maonian Zhi Bao;
Yuanmingyuan bao, the seal of the Garden of the perfect Clarity.
There follow two double-pages dating from the album of 1760 and bearing calligraphic poems by Qiu Rixiu, Minister of Protocol, and Yu Minzhong, secretary of the Emperor Qianlong and preceptor of the imperial princes.
Then twenty double-pages representing couples of twenty minority ethnic groups, male and female vis-à-vis, mainly on the borders of Guangdong and Guangxi today, described and located by a text in Manchu and Chinese.
Finally, two empty double-pages.
Dimensions: 39 cm x 34.2 cm each page.
Miss both precious wood covers and probably 13 double-page illustrated.
Notes
Entitled Zhigongtu (Tribal Bearers), it is rather a representation of ethnic types from the borders of Guangdong and Guangxi today, a man and a woman vis-à-vis on two pages. In addition to a title situating each tribe geographically and administratively, a short notice traces the history of its relations with the Qing Empire. The text is bilingual Chinese and Manchu.
This album is the fourth volume of a series probably comprising eight or twelve. Similar albums, also mounted in horizontal scrolls, cataloging the nations of the world or the vassal peoples of the Chinese empire, are kept at the Palace Museum in Beijing.
One of the double-pages bears the two seals:
Wufuwudaitang guxi tianzi bao, "Great seal of a Son of Heaven having reached a rare longevity of all times (70 years), in the Hall of Five Happiness for five generations", and Bazheng Maonian Zhi Bao, "Great Seal of the Eight Hints for the choice of a successor by an octogenarian ", celebrating the 80 years of Qianlong in 1790 and his concerns to appoint an heir.
Another double-page bears the Yuanmingyuan bao seal, "Garden of Perfect Clarity".
All these marks correspond exactly to those published in Qingdai dihou xiyinpu (Collection of Seals of Emperors and Sovereigns of the Qing Dynasty).
Description