The British Museum’s new Qing dynasty exhibition focuses on China’s hidden century

Kavitha Rao

In 1636, China's Qing dynasty began in a blaze of glory. Founded by the Manchus, at its peak
it ruled over one-third of humanity. Barely a century later, the dynasty was beset by civil
unrest, British meddling, the Opium wars, the Boxer Rebellion and the Sino-Japanese war,
killing millions. By 1912, it had collapsed, bringing an end to 2000 years of dynastic rule.

The British Museum's new exhibition "China's Hidden Century" uses more than 300 objects
to tell the story of this volatile period, during which China experienced immense change.
“There has never been an exhibition which focuses on 19th century creativity and resilience,
and brought textiles, furniture and silver together,” says Jessica Harrison-Hall, head of the
China section at the Museum. The exhibition involved worldwide collaboration. “We
borrowed from 30 international lenders, and researched for a period of 5 years with some 200
scholars across 20 countries supported by a further 200 people,” adds Harrison-Hall.

At the entrance, the object welcoming visitors is deeply revealing: the 1800 map of the Qing
empire called the "All-Under-Heaven Complete Map of the Everlasting Unified Qing
Empire"- a striking blue map extending over 8 scrolls. Europe is barely visible in the
margins. By this time, the empire was already riven with cracks, which would widen over
the years.

The Qing dynasty was often dismissed as a time of decline. But even as marauders came on
the scene, there was a flourishing of art, culture and fine crafts, both big and small. Perhaps
the most striking exhibit is the Empress Dowager Cixi’s gown, a glorious creation in
turquoise and pink from around 1880, with a swooping phoenix on the back. Cixi ruled at the
time of Queen Victoria, of whom she was a great fan. She had hundreds of gowns, and often
changed them several times a day. Later, she would be called a despot by many, but she was
a patron of the arts, and the exhibit displays the various art works she commissioned, from
paintings to porcelain.

Along with luxurious clothing and tiny shoes used for foot binding, there are also everyday
objects that speak to the life of ordinary people of the time: farmers, artisans, soldiers,
housewives. Harrison-Hall calls this an exhibition “that brings people out of the shadows into
the light”, and that it certainly is. There is, for instance, a display of thumb rings used by
Manchu archers and cavalrymen. A mundane object, but beautifully carved in jadeite,
chalcedony, ivory, horn and boxwood for all budgets.

As the population grew, land began to run out. Around the edges of the Qing territory, Han
people began to encroach, and there was huge competition for farming land. In 1870s,
drought and famine hit, along with extreme weather conditions. On show is the crude
waterproof raincoat made of bamboo, palm and rice fibre, worn by farmers, fishermen, street
cleaners and the working class. A great contrast from the silken robes of the emperors.

Meanwhile, as violence clawed at the borders of the Qing empire, artists began to take to
landscape and portrait painting, mixing Chinese traditional art with Western influences. Two
lifelike 1876 portraits of a stern and forbidding couple dressed in blue, businessman Lu Xifu
and his wife Lady Li, blend Confucian ancestral portraits with photography.
As the exhibition progresses, imperial motifs begin to appear. A lithograph shows a British
opium factory in India packing cakes of opium, ready to invade the Chinese market in 1851.
Next to it is the original Treaty of Nanjing, which forced a beleaguered China to hand over
Hong Kong to the British in 1843.

Two massive blue cloisonné vases, over 7 feet tall, dominate the exhibit. These were sent to
George the V and Queen Mary for their coronation in 1911 by the last Qing emperor Puyi,
presumably as a placatory gesture. By then, the dynasty was on its last legs. An 1861 painting
of a Pekinese dog, who was brought to England at the time of the looting of the Summer
Palace and presented to Queen Victoria, is next to graceful jade fragments salvaged from the
palace. The dog was unapologetically called “Looty”.

The exhibition has drawn many people of Chinese origin, mostly tourists visiting the UK
over summer. Many younger visitors at the exhibition said it opened their eyes to the scale of
colonial domination. “I found the exhibition interesting because I had never heard of the Qing
dynasty before,” says Jack Rugless, a 14-year-old student from Hong Kong studying at a
British boarding school. “I also found the information about the opium trade fascinating.”

The exhibition concludes with yet another hidden facet of a changing China: an exhibit about
Qiu Jin, a woman writer born in 1875, who supported the Republican cause, but also the
cause of her sex. “The young intellectuals are all chanting ‘Revolution Revolution’ but I say
the revolution will have to start in our homes, with achieving equal rights for women,” she
wrote.

Qiu Jin became a heroine in China. She was executed by beheading in 1907, but her cruel
fate only helped to sway more people to the republican cause. Only four years later, the
mighty Qing empire collapsed, and China became a republic.

The exhibition runs till October 8, 2023.

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