Western themes in Chinese design

Magazine Antiques, March, 2004 by Patrick Conner

When a conspicuously Western motif appears in (or on) a Chinese object of the Qing dynasty, our curiosity is at once aroused--especially if the object was made for Chinese, not Western, consumption. A case in point is the extraordinary porcelain snuff bottle shown in Plate II, which was made at the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen. Enameled on one side is a bizarre scene: the young Queen Victoria sits enthroned amid a group of bearded courtiers, one of whom kneels to kiss her hand.

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This snuff bottle is one of several examples recorded in major collections (1) and is remarkable in several respects. Western subjects are seldom seen on snuff bottles of the mid-nineteenth century--a date confirmed here by an inscription on the base in seal script, Daoguang nianzhi (made in the Daoguang period [1821-1850]). Moreover, the scene is not merely a conventionalized representation of a long-nosed Westerner, such as appeared in popular drawings of the time, but a detailed grouping of uniformed courtiers and a recognizable Queen Victoria. If it portrays a particular occasion, it is not clear what the occasion is. Could it be Victoria's coronation, her marriage to Prince Albert, or, as has been suggested, a confusion of the two?

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Another puzzle is the source of the design. Since the early years of the eighteenth century, European engravings had been brought to Canton (now called Guangzhou) to be copied in various mediums for export to the West. In this case there seems to be no print that corresponds, even approximately, with the image on the snuff bottle.

There is, however, a pair of striking pictures (Pls. I, V) in a Chinese hand, the one in Plate I being closely related to the snuff-bottle scene and may well be its source. The picture is accompanied by a long Chinese inscription and (on the back) a reasonably accurate translation that was apparently typed out some sixty years ago. According to that translation, in the Chinese equivalent of 1840, "a British chief called Esdala was captured by the Chinese army of Ze-ming [at Ningbo]. This British chief could draw very well, and he drew the English capital and Palace. This is the picture of the Court."

The companion picture (Pl. V) is even stranger. Here the queen is again seated on a dais backed by Albert and courtiers. On the stairs below her a kneeling figure offers a writhing snake to the queen. It is explained in the text that the English were a nation of snake-eaters. The most beautiful snake was yellow and red, but very poisonous.

Its flesh was white and tender. Its taste was delicious and good for
fever.... When they got the snake, they offered it immediately to the
queen. The queen rewarded them with money according to the size of the
snake. (2)

What are we to make of the "British chief called Esdala?" Surely no such individual existed. However, there were several Britons captured by the Chinese near Ningbo in 1840, in the course of the First Opium War (1839-1842), and one of them was renowned for his skills as an artist. This was Captain P. Anstruther of the Madras Artillery, a large, red-bearded man who closely fitted the traditional Chinese notion of the British as redhaired barbarians. (3) Like many artillery officers, he was an able draftsman, and after the British capture of Tinghai (some eighty miles southeast of Shanghai) he made a habit of walking in the hills nearby to survey the countryside. He became a favorite with the local villagers, whose likenesses he would sketch as they gathered around him. On September 16, 1840, he ventured too far from camp and was captured by Chinese soldiers. His Indian servant was killed, and he was brought in irons to the city of Ningbo. There his artistic talents proved useful. When questioned about the British steamers that had made a powerful impression on the Chinese in recent engagements with their fleets of junks, he offered to draw one, which won him hot water, dinner, and a larger cage. Subsequently he obliged his captors with drawings of all kinds of creatures and articles that were unfamiliar to them. (4)

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At Ningbo, Ansthruther was joined by another British prisoner, the twenty-six-year-old Anne Noble. She had been accompanying her husband, the captain of a naval vessel, when the ship ran against a sandbank and capsized. Her husband and her small son were among those lost, and Anne Noble was taken prisoner. Her captors asked her repeatedly about her relationship with Queen Victoria, and despite all her denials, insisted that she was the queen's sister. (5)

Although the prisoners were freed after a few months, the accounts of their experiences inflamed the British soldiers, whose officers had difficulty restraining (and in some cases failed to restrain) their men from violent retaliation when a British force marched into Ningbo. There they found Captain Anstruther's place of captivity with his sketches of guns and horses still on the walls. (6) When the prisoners were finally returned to the British fleet on February 24, 1841, aboard Chinese junks and dressed in Chinese clothes, the ship's surgeon, Edward H. Cree (1814-1901), wrote: