An imperial court portrait of Bannerman Dalhan, Attributed to Ai Qimeng (1708-1780) and Jin Tingbiao (Fl. 1757-1767), Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, circa 1760

Kunsthandel Klefisch, Cologne, 18th November 1989, lot 62.

Kunsthandel Klefisch, Cologne, 16th November 1991, lot 1048.

Christie's Paris, 22nd November 2005, lot 193.

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 9th October 2007, lot 1316.

Ma Yiyun, 'Huang Huiying de xunmei rensheng [Huang Huiying's journey in searching for art]', Wenwu tiandi / Cultural Relics World, no. 6, Beijing, 2011, p. 63.

Skillfully rendered with a blend of European realism and Chinese imperial portraiture, the present portrait represents the pinnacle of eighteenth century court painting and is consistent with the rare and important surviving full-length portraits of the Ziguang Ge (Hall of Purple Splendor), attributed to Ai Qimeng (1708–1780) and Jin Tingbao (d. 1767).

An extraordinary survivor from the heart of the imperial palace, the identity of the present portrait would have been all but lost but for an oil painting of Dalhan of almost identical design preserved in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin (accession no. 22152) – rarely published but included in Ching-Ling Wang, ‘Bolin shoucang de Ziguang Ge gongchen xiang ji qi xiagguan zuopin xinlun’, Gugong xueshu jikan, vol. 34, no. 1, fig. 42 (Fig. 1). Inscriptions in Manchu and Chinese to the front of this oil painting identify the sitter as ‘Bodyguard of the second rank, the Brave warrior [Baturu] of Kashgar [Hashiha], Dalhan’ (Erdeng shiheng hashiha batulu Da’erhan) while the title slip to the rear reads, Pingding Yili Huibu ci gongchenxiang di sishisan or ‘Portrait number 43, series 2, of a meritorious officer who helped pacify the Muslims in the Ili Region.’ While little more is known about the identity of Dalhan, the format and description of the Berlin painting identify him as one of fifty meritorious heroes of the famous conquest of Turkestan between 1755 and 1759. For more information on the related oil paintings, compare other examples from the group preserved in the Ethnologisches Museum alongside the aforementioned, illustrated in Herbert Butz et al., Bilder für die "Halle de Purpurglanzes, Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin, 2003, cat. nos 12-17 and discussed by Dr. Annette Bügener, p. 25, where she attributes those produced from 1755 to Ai Qimeng (Ignaz Sichelbart, 1708–1780) and Pan Tingzhang (Giuseppe Panzi, 1734–1811).

Although the eulogy panel (shitang, literally ‘poem hall’) presumably once accompanying the present portrait has now been lost, its contents – composed by three of the Emperor’s most trusted officials Liu Tongxun, Liu Lun, and Yu Minzhong – has been preserved for posterity in the Qing archives as part of the Qinding huangyu Xiyu tuzhi [Imperially endorsed illustrated treatise on the Western Regions], Qinding Siku Quanshu ed., shoujuan 4, p. 20. The treatise (compiled between 1757 and 1782) summarizes the Qing dynasty's geographical, historical, and ethnographical approach to Xinjiang and Central Asia and preserves the eulogies composed as part of the Ziguang Ge project among others. Of Dalhan, the officials fondly recall:

濟爾哈朗，如蘖生苞，提幾步卒，突出前茅，諭賊捐身，驚呼健者，舊隸名蕃達什達瓦

Jirhalang, like a fresh shoot sprouting from a stump, 

Came to lead several infantry, breaking into the top ranks.

Commanding the enemy to give themselves up, crying in alarm,

This strong one, who was once a bondsman, is named Fandashi Dawa.

In the twentieth year of the Qianlong reign (1755), the Qing army marched west and pacified Zhunbu to the north of The Western Regions (Xiyu, present-day Xinjiang) and returned victoriously to Beijing. To glorify the campaign, the Emperor composed eulogies for fifty meritorious bannermen and ordered fifty more to be written by high-ranking officials particularly favored by the emperor. These hundred eulogies were to be accompanied by portraits of the heroes, apparently each reproduced in three media – a small oil painting, a hand scroll and an almost life-size painting, the latter group to be hung in the Ziguang Ge as testament to the Emperor’s esteem. 

In its proportions and technique, the present portrait was almost certainly originally produced as one of the larger ‘bannerman portraits’ and reduced at some later point to remove the rest of the body and the eulogy above to match the proportions of the Berlin oil example. While the poses and quality of the bodies in these bannerman series vary widely and were likely produced by lesser court artists in any case, the preserved features of the face, his subtle wrinkles and courageous stare are typical of the group and other celebrated works of Ai Qimeng and Jin Tingbiao.

First built during the Hongwu reign of the Ming dynasty (1368-1398), the grand Hall of Purple Splendor was located on the west bank of the Zhonghai in the western gardens of the Forbidden City and, by the Kangxi reign (1662-1722) was used regularly by the court for the imperial review of troops; see an artistic rendering of this festive occasion by Yao Wenhan in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Paintings by Court Artists of the Qing Court, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 58. As a place of military regalia and splendor, it was only fitting that the Ziguang Ge should be host to memorial portraits like the present, glorifying the sitters’ loyalty, bravery and glory. 

Aside from the hundred portraits from the 1755–59 campaign, the Qianlong Emperor similarly commissioned another hundred sets of portraits from the Jinchuan campaign, fifty from his conquest of Taiwan and another thirty from the Gurkha campaign to hang in the Ziguang Ge. Thus, over his sixty year reign, a total of two-hundred and eighty banner compositions appear to have been produced, of which the majority now appear to be lost. Of the surviving bannermen portraits, only two remain in Chinese public collections: namely, the portrait of ‘Officer Ayuxi who pacified Xi Yu’ and that of ‘General Shujing’an’ who was deputy commander of Chengdu and pacified Da Jinchuan and Xiao Jinchuan, both preserved in the Tianjin Museum; while the remaining few are largely preserved abroad in public institutions and only very rarely remaining in private hands.

To date, fewer than one hundred of these portraits appear to survive of which a large proportion were preserved in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin before being sent to St. Petersburg, where they presumably remain in the State Hermitage Museum. For other examples of bannerman portraits from the two Turkestan series to appear on the market, compare the portrait of Fuheng, now in the same collection as the present lot, sold in our London rooms, 5th June 1981, lot 171 and again in these rooms, 23rd to 25th April 1987, lot 56; that of Uksiltu, also now in the same collection, sold at Christie’s New York, 27th March 1996, lot 101; the portrait of Daktana sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27th April 1997, lot 98 and 29th April 2001, lot 580; and that of Cemcukjab, sold in these rooms, 11th and 12th September 2012, lot 236.

The backing on the portrait’s frame is mounted with old newspaper, dated around the 3rd September 1903, which can be traced to the city of Tilsit (modern-day Sovetsk). Situated at the confluence of the rivers Tilse and Memel, the town became an independent district of Prussia in 1895 and is now part of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.