Thesis: The Politics of Portraiture at the Qianlong Court, 1735–1795
Supervisor: Dr Stephen Whiteman
Advisor: Professor Joanna Woodall
Funded by The Courtauld Scholarship
The PhD thesis centres on the production and political uses of portraits at the Qianlong court (1735-1795), seeking to explore how portraiture served the imperial Qing court as a technology of domination and articulated emerging visions of universal rulership in response to the growth of a culturally and ethnically pluralistic empire and the increasingly interconnected world of the early modern period. The thesis counters with past scholarship that read Qianlong court portraits either as aesthetically autonomous artworks or static containers of political messages without taking account of contextual peculiarities and actual function. Synthesising multilingual historical texts and looking closely the surviving portraits, the thesis reconstructs a dynamic view of the politics of portraiture and uncovers the court’s awareness of and avid participation in utilising portraiture to speak to transcultural audiences, within and without the heartland of the empire, in the contexts of commemoration, diplomacy, and ritual.
Research Interests
- Visual and material cultures of the Qing empire (1645 – 1911), especially the High Qing era (ca. 1661 – 1799).
- Portraiture of late imperial China (11th – 20th centuries)
- Portraiture in transcultural and transregional contexts
- Manchu studies
- Collection and reception of Chinese arts in early twentieth century
Education
PhD student, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2020 – present)
MA in History of Art, Peking University (2016-2019)
BA in History of Art and Theory, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts (2012-2016)
Professional Experience
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States (advised by Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, Oscar Tang and Agnes Hsu-Tang Curator of Chinese Paintings) (2025-26).
Associate Lecturer. BA 2 Histories Module Landscape and Environment in Early Modern China (Spring Semester, 2023-4; instructed by Dr Henning von Mirbach).
Smithsonian Institution Fellow, National Museum of Asian Art (The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery), Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., United States (advised by Jan Stuart, Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art) (2022-23).
Co-ordinator. Workshop programme “Object Literacy II: Transdisciplinary Research and the Material Object in Chinese Art History”, CHASE Cohort Development Fund (CDF), UK (2021- July 2022).
Research Assistant to Dr. Stephen Whiteman, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2021-present).
Library Research Assistant for the Subject Guide of Early Modern Chinese Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2020-2021).
Selected Publications and Papers
‘Emperor or Bodhisattva? The Qianlong Emperor as Bodhisattva Manjushri in the Collection of the Potala Palace, Lhasa, Revisited.’ Presented at Making the Subject of Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context, SOAS University of London, December 5-7, 2024.
‘Accidental Acquisition: The Newly Discovered Album Leaves from the Eulogies of Zhou at the Victoria & Albert Museum.’ Co-authored with Ricarda Brosch. Orientations, Vol. 55, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 2024): 2-12.
‘The Scarred Faces: Smallpox and Manchu Masculinity in Portraiture of Qing China (1645 – 1912).’ Internal Talk Series, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., August 2023.
‘Gugong cang Qing ren hứa Hongli suizhao xingle tu ji qi kongjian yuanjing yanjiu’ 故宮藏《清人畫弘歷歲朝行樂圖》及其空間原境研究 [An Investigation on the Picture of Hongli Celebrating the New Year and Its Original Context], meishu daguan 美術大觀 (Art Panorama), no. 10 (2021): 55-64.