Kublai Khan, Chinese Emperor Shizu, 1215-1294, Yuan Dynasty, painted during reign of Emperor Kangxi, late 17th/early 18th century, pigment on paper
Original painting, natural pigments on paper, private collection, late 17th century to mid 18th century. It forms a pair with the portrait identified as Kublai Khan's ill-fated son Crown Prince Zhenjin although the paintings appear to be by different hands. Numbered consecutively to the side the two protraits may have been leaves in an album. Kublai Khan (1215 - 1294) was the grandson of Genghis Khan. He inherited and expanded the Mongol Empire in China and its region. He founded the Yuan Empire which he ruled as emperor from 1260 to 1294. Also known by his temple name of Shizu and Setsen Khan. First known on the West through the Travels of Marco Polo, who allegedly worked for him, published in 1300; later through Coleridge's halucinogenic poem Xanadu (1797). This picture is based on a lost original by Kublai Khan's Tibetan court painter Araniko. The isimplified mage became an immediately recognisable icon reproduced throughlout China in the Emperor's time and later. he thus beacme the stuff of myth and legend. The Manchu Qing Emperor Kangxi (1654 - 1722, ruled China 1661-1722), another foreign emperor from the North, revered him and revived the style of naturalistic protrait painting, on paper as well as silk, of his Court as exemplifed by works by the painter , poet and court official Zhao Meng painting also shows the influence of the Jesuits who brought European styles and techniques to the early Qing courts. This portrait is remarkable because, unlike later mass produced, charicature versions of images of Chinese emperors, it shows a believable tough and world weary ruler, possibly hinting at a link between the medieval Khan and a later successor, The Emperor Kangxi's reverence for Genghis Khan was shared by his grandson Qianlong and it is likely that the picture dates from the early 1760s when the Jesuit influence was still paramount at Court.
Size: 3000px × 3420px
Location: London
Photo credit: © Candida Slater / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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