A RARE AND IMPORTANT IMPERIAL COURT PAINTING OF THE BANNERMAN TE'ER DENG CHEQianlong, dated by inscription to the Wushen year, corresponding to 1788 and of the periodInk and colours on silk, depicting a bannerman facing directly the viewer with finely painted whiskers, donning a fur-lined hat surmounted by a coral bead and a peacock feather with a single-eyed plume (dan yan hua ling), dressed in a grey surcoat with foliate roundels, green colour and tunic, wearing a pair of black silk boots with white soles, his right hand drawing his sword, his left hand holding the shagreen scabbard, eulogised with several lines of text above, the right side with Chinese in kaishu calligraphy and in Manchu on the left, with one seal of the Qianlong emperor between, reading Qianlong Yulan Zhibao, mounted on board. The painting, 186cm high x 96cm wide (73in high x 37 3/4in wide).Footnotes:清乾隆戊申年 1788 特爾登徹像 設色絹本Provenance: an English private collection; according to the owner, the painting was gifted to the owner's late husband circa 1970s.來源：英國私人收藏；據現藏家稱，該畫於二十世紀七十年代由友人贈予其現已過世的丈夫The inscription in Manchu reads:meiren i janggin i jergi uheri da bihe xukdan baturu teldence daci solon i dorgi gabtara manggangge da tolome goirakvngge akv, dabkime morin noilhumbume faida be birehe de dardai andande efulerakvungge akv, ehe hvlha be sihame fargara de etuhun hvsun i fafurxame funturxehe de dasame arbun nirubufi, erei faxxaha be saixame iletulehe abkai fehiyehe xufayan bonio aniya juwari ujui biyade han i arahanggeThe inscription in Chinese reads:原副都統銜總管舒克丹巴圖魯特爾登徹索倫勁手箭無虛發躍馬突陣縱横倏忽視力窮追猛氣咆勃再炳丹青用旌偉伐乾隆戊申孟夏御題Which may be translated as:Former Lieutenant-general, Commandant [and] Xukdan Baturu [Manchu term for national hero], TeldenceOriginally from the Solon [people], he is an expert at archery and who does not miss [literally: counting his hits, he has no misses]. When whipping his horse, making it gallop, and rushing to attack the formation, there is nothing he does not destroy. When hot on the pursuit of the evil bandits, he vigorously rooted them out. Having [ordered] to paint [his] image, through this moreover, I commend him and make obvious his effort.Written by the Emperor Qianlong in the early Summer of the Wushen year (1788) Bannermen were the Qing dynasty's military elite administered into divisions known as the Eight Banners. Apart from being soldiers, the banner system was also the basic organisational framework of all Manchu society and included various groups including Manchus, Mongols and Han Chinese. The Solon people, mentioned in the present inscription, are a subgroup of the Evenki people of north-eastern Asia. The Solon were ordered by the Qianlong Emperor to stop using rifles and instead practice traditional archery, issuing an edict for silver taels to be issued for guns to be turned over to the government. It is not surprising therefore, that the Emperor praises Teldence's archery skills in particular. The eulogy of the present lot describes the bannerman Teldence (Chinese name Te'er Dengche), as a heroic and brave warrior and praises his relentless pursuit of the rebels. This portrait, and those of other officers in this series of Bannerman paintings, was commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor as part of two series of portraits after the triumphant campaign in Taiwan against Ming-loyalist rebels in the years 1787 to 1788. Teldence's rank and excellence in the battlefield is unmistakable in the single-eyed peacock feather that hangs prominently from the back of his black fur-trimmed winter hat, an Imperial gift bestowed only to officers who had distinguished themselves in a military campaign.In 1786 a rebellion arose out of central Taiwan in the village of Daliyi, led by the Ming loyalist Lin Shuangwen. The brutality of the Qing army against the local populace sparked an uprising on 16th January 1787, and Lin organised an army that quickly seized Taichung, Hsinchu and Chunghwa, which was established as their capital. He assumed the title 'King of the Ming' and extended his territory to Fengshan, but was unable to gain control of the capital city, Tainan. The rebels were able to defend their holdings despite Qing reinforcements from the mainland until Lin Cou, one of Lin Shuangwen's generals, defected to the Qing. On 10th February 1788, after ruling central Taiwan for over a year, Ling Shuangwen was captured and later executed, marking the end of the campaign.This portrait, painting number 5 in the second set of portraits, was produced in 1788. The yuan 原 ('former') character in the inscription implies that Teldence had died by the time the portrait was painted, either during the campaign or after. Such Imperial bannerman paintings were housed in the Ziguange (Hall of Purple Splendour), a hall of fame for Immortal heroes, located in the West Garden of the Imperial Palace Precincts in Beijing. During the Qianlong Emperor's reign in total 280 compositions of bannermen portrait paintings were made which were hung in the Ziguang Pavilion. Following Qianlong's example, later emperors continued adding new portraits to the collection in the Ziguang Pavilion. During the reign of the Qianlong emperor the building was also used to display battle wall charts and seized weapons and was also known as the 'Hall of Barbarian Tributes'. The Qianlong emperor often held banquets and received foreigners there; to impress on foreign guests the Qing empire's formidable military power. See C.Ho and B.Bronson, Splendors of China's Forbidden City: the Glorious Reign of Emperor Qianlong, Chicago, 2004, p.118.The present lot embodies the Imperial academy workshop style of the eighteenth century, which combined traditional Chinese portrait painting with Western painting techniques introduced by Jesuit missionary artists at Court such as Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), Ignace Sichelbart (1708-1780) and Jean-Denis Attiret (1702-1768).
