Agriculture by Royal Example: Eighteenth-century representations of the emperor at work in China and in France

Abstract

In classical Chinese theories of governance, the ceremonial act of a monarch personally pushing a plow is equated with the promotion of agriculture. A regal demonstration of this act of agrarian labor publically testified that the ruler recognized the importance of agriculture as the basis of his kingdom’s prosperity. This ceremony, established during the Zhou era (c.1100–256 BCE), was revitalized with great enthusiasm by the Yongzheng emperor (r. 1722-1735). He recorded his devotion to agriculture in paintings and texts. Within years, descriptions of this ceremony travelled to France where artists and engravers were likewise inspired to pictorialize this act. This paper explores the motivations of such representations of imperial labor in both China and France. For the Yongzheng emperor, the act of tilling was a means to consolidate his claims to the throne. In the case of France, the appeal of representations of the emperor plowing was aligned with the emerging discipline of economics and government efforts to reform agrarian policies. As men such as Étienne de Silhouette (1709-1767) and François Quesnay (1694-1774) strove to re-evaluate the role of agriculture in generating the wealth of a nation, they found inspiration in China.