The Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the Capital

The Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the Capital

François Denis Née

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print shows the Chinese emperor on horseback, followed by ranks of infantry approaching a circular stand, surrounded by soldiers, on which enemy flags are presented. Part of a set of sixteen, "The Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the Capital" was commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 1765 to commemorate Manchu victories (1755-59) over the Eleuths, the Dzungars, and other Central Asian peoples in the present-day region of Xinjiang. Made under the direction of Charles-Nicolas Cochin (1715-1790), the prints, which follow reduced-scale copies of paintings by Jesuit artists working in Beijing, were etched and engraved in France from 1767 to 1774 by the finest printmakers at the court of Louis XV. The Chinese merchants of Canton (present-day Guangzhou) paid for the copper plates and two hundred sets of prints to be delivered to China, with only a few sets retained in Paris. The prints exemplify the fusion of Eastern and Western representational styles fostered within the Qing imperial painting academy. The European technique of chiaroscuro-the modeling of forms through the use of light and shading-has been visibly tempered, as has the use of one-point perspective. Instead, the scenes present panoramic views and strongly up-tilt ground planes. At the same time, howevery, they reflect European preferences for anatomical accuracy, a single light source, and the mathematically correct reduction of scale to create the illusion of recession.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the CapitalThe Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the CapitalThe Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the CapitalThe Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the CapitalThe Emperor Greeting The Triumphant Troops Outside of the Capital

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.