Speaker: Dr. Chou Ying-ching, Joyce (Postdoctoral Fellow of Art Museum, CUHK)

 

This session will discuss the role of packaging at the Qing court, in which the Qianlong Emperor developed it fully for his collection and the speaker argues that its objects were defined by their packaging. The objects in themselves represented rich and sophisticated systems of Chinese visual culture and history, which referred to the objects’ stories and biographies, including their authors, previous collectors, and history of circulation. Qianlong was attempting to incorporate himself into and to further reform the system through the packaging. Instead of analysing the collection’s objects, already the subjects of multiple studies, the focus here is on their packaging because this both defined and expanded the system.

 

Secrecy and concealment are essential elements of the practice of packaging. The speaker will apply the secrecy theory to Qianlong’s packaging of his collection. Secrecy served as a means of control and Qianlong exercised further control by restricting access to his collection, including who was able to approach it, what objects could be seen, and how to access them. This is because that, the ultimate aim of secrecy is not concealing but revealing a secret to an intended audience, which is usually a limited number of persons. This operation of secrecy can be best exemplified in the Qing secret memorial system, which was precisely achieved by a form of special packaging called baoxia (box for secret reports).