The Qianlong Emperor is known for being one of China’s longest-lived rulers and for his numerous achievements in leading the Qing Empire through military conquest and economic prosperity. However, he is probably best remembered for his artistic achievements— presiding over a golden age of culture, cataloging works of art, and commissioning artwork, including those with European influences.
Qianlong would commonly commission Western-style works for his collection, and one of the most prolific artists to produce this style of European-influenced Chinese artwork was a Jesuit by the name of Giuseppe Castiglione, who was given the Chinese courtesy name of Lang Shining, who worked in the courts of three separate Qing emperors, with the last being Qianlong. His body of art includes The Blue Goats (1759-1760), which has an elaborate history of two different copies, with this one showing strong evidence, from Sotheby's, that it was painted by both Castiglione and another court painter called Jin Tingbiao.
The Blue goats were just sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong in a dedicated single-lot sale for this painting. After a round of bidding, the lot hammered for HK$48 million, selling for a final price with fees of HK$58.9 million (around US$7.6 million). It was won by Jen Hua, Deputy Chairman, Asia & Chairman, China Hong Kong, for her client on the phone with the paddle number 6913.
The lot, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in the late 1750s, has strong political undertones running throughout it, along with a strong record of imperial ownership.
Lot 9501 | Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining) (1688-1768) and Jin Tingbiao (d. 1767) | The Blue Goats, Ink and colour on silk, hanging scroll
Completed between 1759-1760
217.6 x 191.8 cm
Provenance
- Collection of Guo Baochang (1867-1942), Beijing, c. late 1920s
- Collection of Douglas Bergeron, an American antique dealer
- The Chinese Porcelain Company, New York, 1990s
- A private collection, South America, 1990s to the present
Estimate: HK$60,000,000-150,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$48,000,000
Sold: HK$58,935,000 (around US$7.6 million)
Auction House: Sotheby's Hong Kong
Sale: Divine Vigor: A Monumental Masterpiece by Giuseppe Castiglione
Date: 7 May 2025
The story of this lot starts with the Qianlong Emperor directing Castiglione to paint a pair of paintings for him to use in the Painted Boat Studio within the Forbidden City, The Pheasants and The Blue Goats, in late 1759. The court would receive these works in June of 1760, and so pleased with them, he ordered Jin Tingbiao, a painter who had more recently entered the court, to make copies of them in the same size to use in the Painted Boat Studio.
The Jin Tingbiao versions of the Castiglione works were completed and presented to the Qianlong Emperor later that same year and were displayed first in the Ruyi Pavilion before they were moved to the Painted Boat Studio in Beijing as a mounted scroll. Important to note is that the Jin Tingbiao version of The Blue Goats replaced the original in the Painted Boat Studio, with the original being preserved within the Emperor's private collection, while what would become this lot sold by Sotheby's went on to be the publicly displayed painting.
Thus, there exist two distinct versions of this work, with the older of the two having the goats painted and signed by Castiglione, and the scenery painted by another artist called Fang Cong. That version is currently held by the National Palace Museum in Taipei and has a significantly different background from the lot sold by Sotheby's.
The version that was just sold by Sotheby's only contains a signature from Jin Tingbiao, and the court documents refer to him as the sole creator of this painting, but the auction house has come to assert that Castiglione was also involved in the creation of this second work.
Giuseppe Castiglione and Fang Cong | The Blue Goats (1759) | National Palace Museum, Taipei | The alternative version of The Blue Goats with a different scenery artist, additionally, this is the version that the court officially attributes to Castiglione, and is signed by him
The relevant Qing dynasty documentation written by administrators that refers to the commissioning and acquisition of The Peasants and The Blue Goats
Sotheby's presents evidence that Castiglione also worked on this lot with Jin Tingbiao through an analysis of the technique used to paint all the goats. The unique European styling used to create them and their specific details bear connections to Castiglione's work, suggesting he had a hand in creating the Jin Tingbiao-signed version of The Blue Goats.
Explaning, the signature part is the fact that since the Qianlong Emperor commissioned Jin Tingbiao to create the work, he would be the only person to sign it, regardless of whether Castiglione also worked on it.
This theory is also not new, as in the 1990s, a researcher of Qing court art at the Beijing Palace Museum, Nie Chongzheng, studied both the painting in Taipei and the one that was just sold at auction, which was then in a private collection. His prior research supports the theory presented by Sotheby's, highlighting details such as the pose of the subjects, their eyes, the texture of their fur, and various other small details that, across all four goats in both paintings, have too much in common not to be all painted by Castiglione.
Additionally, Nie Chongzheng notes that this piece is not the only one that can be dually attributed to both Castiglione and Jin Tingbiao, with the Joyful Scene in the Palace being another example of this dual effort between both court painters, providing a precedent for this collaboration and showcasing that this work is not necessarily an outlier.
The top image of the goat is in the Tapei collection, while the lower one was with the just-sold lot. The differences in color and scenery of the works that distinguish the Fang Cong and Jin Tingbiao paintings
While the scenery is different, notice the details of both goats; it is here that Sotheby's claims that the specifics found in both pieces confirm that Castiglione worked on both pieces, regardless of official confirmation
Delving into the technical mastery of the goats, they are far more European and display a deep anatomical understanding of the two subjects. The detailed anatomy can best be seen in the fur, where the texture can be visualized in the painting, and it's one of the defining and identifying parts of both the Taipei and the Sotheby's paintings.
The further attention to details such as the hooves, joints, posture, and eyes all stand out, not just because of their quality and anatomical correctness, but also because of how they all pop out compared to the rest of the work, with the hybridization of Chinese and Western art styles.
There’s a certain delicate nature to the goats being painted onto the scene, further evidenced by the chiaroscuro style of lighting used to paint the goats, which gives them a real sense of volume and dimension within the work, as if they are scaling and interacting with the environment around them. It is details such as these in both paintings that provide the evidence for Sotheby's to assert that, regardless of his signature, or lack thereof, Castiglione was involved in the painting of both the version in Taipei and that was just sold by Sotheby's.
Works such as these that combined European and Chinese artistic methods were popular among the Qing court, and many such examples exist and can be found today, with Castiglione’s being of particular importance.
The goats in the painting are painted in a more European style, amongst a more Chinese-inspired landscape
Careful attention was paid to the texturing and colouring of the animals through the utilization of a chiaroscuro method of painting
The distinctly Chinese scenery that surrounds the two goats
As for the distinctly Chinese surroundings, this version was painted by Jin Tingbiao, another famed painter in the Qing Court, who often collaborated with Castiglione, adding the Chinese elements to his work. While not as well-recorded as Castiglione, Jin Tingbiao still curried favor with the Qianlong Emperor, who rose through the ranks of Qing painting institutions and who presented works to the Emperor, which the Emperor then prized in his collection.
A well-rounded painter, he was heavily rewarded by the Emperor, more so than his contemporaries, and was given important tasks, and he is recorded for painting a total of 87 works.
In The Blue Goats, Jin Tingbiao makes use of very traditional Chinese brushwork to craft the area in which the goats reside. In the work, the rocks are painted with small ‘axe-cut’ texture strokes, and the flowers use exact delineation and enriched colors.
The Jin Tingbiao background also heavily contrasts with the Fang Cong background found in the other version of The Blue Goats, now in Taipei. There's a different style of rocky background in the Taipei version; the trees are painted differently, and the colors used in both versions are starkly different, making how the goats stand out in each painting unique.
Jin Tingbiao | The Pheasants | Sold by Beijing Poly Auction for RMB 71.3 million (around US$9.8 million), 2017 | The other work referenced by the Qing imperial documentation alongside The Blue Goats. Beijing Poly Auction also presents the same case as Sotheby's, that this lot, while only signed by Jin Tingbiao, contains evidence that suggests Castiglione also helped paint it
Born in the Duchy of Milan in 1688, Giuseppe Castiglione joined the Jesuit Order when he turned 19 as a lay brother, a member who practiced a certain craft, with his being a painter. During the late 1600s, the Qing Court of the Kangxi Emperor desired European Jesuit painters to join it and fill out various technical roles, including painting. Castiglione, while young, was promising and departed for China in 1710, arriving in Macau in 1715 and Beijing in 1716.
The story of his introduction to the Qing Court goes that when he was presented to the Kangxi Emperor, he demanded that Castiglione paint for him on the spot, with the accounts differing on whether he was to paint a dog or a bird. Regardless, he passed and served the Kangxi Emperor along with his son, the Yongzheng Emperor, and grandson, the Qianlong Emperor, who all favoured him and his work.
Beauties Collection (1725), one of Castiglione’s earliest surviving works and a prime example of the hybridization of Chinese and Western arts in paintings made in Qing-ruled China, is located in the Shanghai Museum
Castiglione’s favor was in part due to his development of his style that incorporated both Chinese and European styles in paintings, which he developed in 1723. This includes one of his earliest surviving paintings of flowers in a vase, which would mark the start of a long line of works commissioned by the Yongzheng Emperor from Castiglione.
Castiglione’s status only grew under the Qianlong Emperor, who commissioned even more works from him, including portraits of important Qing Court figures, including the emperor and empress, and animals, which may be the origin of this work. Castiglione was also placed in charge of the Western-style palaces, including the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. Furthermore, it was not rare for artists like himself to collaborate with other court artists on various commissioned works, and various other examples can be found.
Joyful Scene in the Palace, a painting which is believed to be another collaboration between Castiglione and Jin Tingbiao
Castiglione's painting of the Qianlong Emperor in ceremonial armour, painted in 1758
The painting itself ties into the history of the Qing dynasty, which had only just moved in to consolidate its rule over Xinjiang, where these blue goats can be found. It prominently displays two of these rare animals in a rural environment where the goats excel in their natural rocky environment.
This fusion of Western and Chinese influences hides what could ultimately be a very political work, as evidenced by a poem by the Qianlong Emperor titled The Poem of the Blue Goats. Under the Kangxi Emperor, the Xinjiang region was conquered by the Qing during the Dzungar–Qing Wars. The Qianlong Emperor then had to deal with numerous revolts and a hostile population, which was the focus of his poetry that described the conquest and Chinese rule over this part of Central Asia.
To the Qianlong Emperor, there was a sort of dichotomy between the goats and the environment that had political allegories. To him, the goats were like the people of Western China: bold, fierce, rugged, and untamed. They feared not the wilds of the region but the civilizing force of the Qing and imperialism, but they were captive to the Qing dynasty. One could infer the same themes and ideas in this painting, with the audience, the Qing court, looking over their subjects and hinterland.
As for the goats themselves, in Chinese culture, blue goats can be seen as auspicious animals, starting during the Qing dynasty. They can be seen as a symbol of gentleness, kindness, and peace, but during the Qing dynasty, their meaning was elevated to also be symbols of imperial blessings. However, before the Qing, there were also images of goats on bronze vessels that also symbolized auspiciousness during the Han Dynasty.
A model of the Painted Boat Studio in the Forbidden City, where this work would have been showcased
Following the records, this work spent some time in the Painted Boat Studio within the Forbidden City, a large complex with several courtyards and gardens, used by the Qing elite as a sort of leisure spot and area where the emperor entertained and met foreign dignitaries, as well as a place to enjoy his paintings. Built alongside numerous man-made bodies of water, it gains its name from appearing as a boat floating on water.
While remaining in the Qing collection long after the painter and commissioner’s deaths during the Boxer Rebellion, much of Beijing fell under the occupation of the Eight-Nation Allied Forces, with the area containing the Painted Boat Studio falling under the jurisdiction of the Germans, who engaged in heavy sacking and looting of the area.
Although it seems as if this painting escaped that fate, in 1930, an image of the work appeared in Hu She Yuekan (Lake Artists Association Monthly Bulletin), volume 31, under the ownership of Guo Baochang, who took pictures of it for his students. Guo Baochang was a key figure in the arts during the rule of President Yuan Shikai in China, especially in the field of ceramics.
From there, it went on to the ownership of Douglas Bergeron, an American antiques dealer, before passing through two other owners and ending up in South America.