Negotiating artisanal luxury and Confucius statecraft: The afterlife of Ming official carved lacquer at the Qianlong court

Embracing an interdisciplinary approach to objects spanning the fields of art history, material culture, and literary studies, this article explores the imperial agency of the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-95) as well as his rhetorical and artistic strategies through the appropriation of Ming dynasty (1368-1644) carved lacquer in the imperial collection. When the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) overthrew the Ming, the whole Ming palace complex, housing the imperial art collection, passed into the possession of the new rulers. Lothar Ledderose has summarized that every imperial art collection was a lingbao or magical treasure. This generalization, however, when applied to the Qianlong court, needs to be historicized or contextualized - various artifacts presumably served the emperor\u27s different cultural agendas in the sixty years of his long rulership. Through examining Qianlong\u27s discursive, cultural and ritual practices, I will take a departure from Ledderose\u27s generalized framework to delve into the Manchu emperor\u27s negotiation between his active patronage of artisanal luxuries and Confucian discourse about imperial righteousness. In order to explore the legacy of these collectibles and their distinctive role in shaping Qing imperial taste and symbolism, I first scrutinize Ming official carved lacquer along with Qianlong\u27s poems and seals, which reveal their afterlife in 18th century China. Then, I seek to contextualize the ways in which Ming visual designs were transformed and incorporated into Qing palace displays and court festivities. By reconstructing the production, circulation, and use of official works under Qianlong in juxtaposition with their Ming counterparts in light of substantial records from the imperial palace archives, this article demonstrates how those Qing imperial collectibles, initially intended for the Ming Chinese predecessors, served the Manchu way