The Face of Diplomacy in Nineteenth-Century China: Qiying's Portrait Gifts

Abstract

Qiying (1787–1858), the imperial commissioner responsible for negotiating the Treaty of Nanking and other treaties with foreign powers, made a habit of presenting portraits to his British, American, and other foreign counterparts, and wrote extensively on the purpose and etiquette of this practice. This chapter examines the portrait as an objection reflecting the social conventions of patronage and the blend of Chinese and Western pictorial conventions that lend it form and legibility in the Sino-Western diplomatic relations of the first half of the nineteenth century. It also compares British and American attitudes towards these gifts.