Europe’s long fascination with ancient Chinese art and culture isn’t new, as it was even mythologized in the Middle Ages. However, it was during the reign of Louis XIV that a new era began, bringing the East and West closer than ever before.
“Most high, most Excellent, most Puissant, and most Magnanimous Prince, Our Dearly Beloved Good Friend, may God increase your Grandeur with a happy end. Being inform’d, that Your Majesty, was desirous to have near your Person, and in your Dominions, a considerable number of Learned Men, very much vers’d in the European Sciences, we resolv’d some Years ago, to send you six Learn’d Mathematicians Our Subjects, to show Your Majesty what ever is most curious in Sciences, and especially the Astronomical Observations of the Famous Academy we have establish’d in our good City of Paris. ... Your most Dear, and Good Friend, Louis.”
These two monarchs at the eastern and western ends of the Eurasian land mass stand out in the world of the late 17th century. In the West, Louis XIV (1638–1715) ruled France for 72 years as a member of the Bourbon dynasty and was the longest reigning European monarch. In the East, Kangxi (1654–1722) ruled China for nearly 62 years as a member of the Qing Dynasty and the longest reigning Chinese emperor. Both of them loved riding, hunting, and archery, were fond of the arts, and ushered in a golden age during their reigns. They are unique, yet they present with striking similarities.
Divine Right to Rule
Both Louis XIV and Kangxi ruled by divine right, but their reigns manifested through different Eastern and Western theologies. King Louis considered himself to be God’s representative on earth, while Emperor Kangxi was considered the Son of Heaven.The king likened himself to Apollo, who was the sun god in Greek and Roman mythology, and chose Apollo’s sun as his emblem. Just as the planets revolved around the sun, the nobility and courtiers revolved around the Sun King at Versailles. As a king who loved to dance and perform, the 14-year-old Louis debuted in the role of Apollo in the “Ballet Royal de la Nuit” commemorating his victory over the Fronde rebellions. Allegorical paintings and sculptures also depict the king as a Roman emperor in his military victories. This association with Greco-Roman antiquity accentuated his power as monarch and glorified the king’s position as a divine ruler.
Louis XIV was also a devout Catholic and swore to defend the Catholic faith at his coronation. However, unlike Louis, who sought religious unity under a single faith, in ancient China, Kangxi acknowledged the three traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism that intersected in everyday life.
The ancient Chinese believed that mountains were close to the heavens and were sacred dwellings for immortals. For centuries, Chinese emperors visited Mt. Tai, which was known as a sacred mountain, and all three religious disciplines had major temples there. Climbing to its summit affirmed their rule from heaven, and it symbolized the connection between imperial legitimacy and divinity. Kangxi’s visit was of particular significance since he was Manchu and rather an outsider to the Han Chinese. By climbing Mt. Tai, Kangxi sent a message that he was going to rule not as a Manchu conqueror but as a traditional Han emperor, and it proved that the new Qing Dynasty fitted into existing Chinese traditions. This extraordinary event was commemorated in Wang Hui’s scroll painting, “The Kangxi Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour, Scroll Three: Ji’nan to Mount Tai.”
Emperor Kangxi and Learning From the West
While Kangxi and Louis XIV never met in person, they were indirectly connected through the French Jesuit missionaries in China. It was the missionaries who first made lyrical comparisons between the two rulers and brought firsthand knowledge. This triggered mutual discovery and inspiration as they explored each other’s arts and culture, ushering in a wave of Sino-Franco exchange.
Emperor Kangxi welcomed the French king’s envoys and was fascinated by the scientific knowledge that they brought; he took a profound interest in European astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. The emperor made them his personal tutors as they gave him assiduous lessons every day. Kangxi loved to teach his ministers, too, while taking them on trips to display his knowledge. He also ordered the translation of books like Euclid’s “Elements” and even attempted to prove the authority of ancient Chinese works with Western science.
The king’s mathematicians had explicit scientific goals; among them was the geographical study of the Qing territories and continental East Asia. Emperor Kangxi had coincidental aspirations, as he wanted to improve cartographic practice as a means of frontier control of his newly conquered territories. Thus, there were converging interests between the emperor and the Royal Academy’s push for scientific exploration.
The missionaries were impressed with the emperor’s diligence as he spent most of his leisure time in the pursuit of Western learning. They brought numerous Paris-made precision instruments in gilded copper—including compasses, telescopes, timepieces, and drawing tools like protractors, sectors, and rulers—to facilitate his studies.
One such instrument gifted to the emperor was a semicircle protractor with a built-in compass, used for land surveying.
Kangxi often took the missionaries to accompany him on his military campaigns, and they worked together to determine their locations relative to the capital. While the emperor and his tutors calculated latitude based on polestar altitudes, the Qing officials estimated longitude with geometric rope-measured distances. Applying this newfound knowledge in astronomy and geometry, they were able to map out new terrains.
Louis XIV and Chinese Porcelain
King Louis’s missionaries traveled back to France bearing gifts from the emperor. Dazzled by the treasures, the king initiated a deep interest in emulating Chinese arts and culture at all levels of French society. This sentiment of admiration was echoed in a quote from Voltaire (1694–1778), who wrote: “There is no house in Europe whose antiquity is so well proved as that of the Empire of China.”Porcelain was one of the most important means by which Chinese art was introduced into the French court. Louis XIV himself collected over 3,000 pieces of mostly Chinese porcelain. The king would drink his soup from a large Chinese porcelain cup with golden handles. It was seen as white gold at that time in Europe due to its rarity and was a sign of luxury. Cobalt oxide pigment was painted on pure white clay, resulting in an elegant blue design against a snowy white background.
These pieces, however, were transformed and adapted to French taste. Gilded cast bronze mounts were added to these imported porcelain wares to enhance their value and repurpose their use. The “Perfume Fountain,” for instance, was reconstructed out of three different porcelain wares with mounted gilt bronze to take on a completely new function—the dispensing of perfume. A pair of ewers were made from two Chinese porcelain vases. Each vase is mounted between a gilt bronze pouring lip and foot ring connected by a handle designed with branches of flowers and scrolling acanthus leaves. These ewers, however, were meant only for decorative use.
The craze for Chinese porcelain also manifested itself in French art and architecture. The king displayed his taste for Chinese art in his private residences and retreats at Versailles, such as the Porcelain Trianon, which was inspired by the Nanking porcelain pagoda. The porcelain house exhibited a fusion of both cultures, as the French-style rooftop was covered with blue and white ceramic tiles embellished with porcelain vases, while the interior stucco panels, woodwork, and furniture were all painted blue and white, evoking Chinese artistry.
French Baroque painting at the time also echoed the enthusiasm for Chinese porcelain, particularly the works of Alexandre-François Desportes (1661–1743), who often depicted Chinese porcelain bowls in his still-life paintings.
Enchanted by the exquisite qualities of porcelain, the French artisans sought to imitate it and discover its secretive fabrication techniques. In an effort to duplicate it, they developed an artificial soft-paste porcelain. However, they found they couldn’t produce the same quality and durability without kaolin, an extremely refined white clay that was a key ingredient. It wasn’t until the early 18th century that the French discovered the Chinese technique of making hard-paste porcelain, through investigations of a Jesuit missionary at the imperial kilns in China.
The Sino-Franco Exchange
Not only were Emperor Kangxi and King Louis XIV extraordinary sovereigns in their own right, but also their legacies were marked by mutual discovery that inaugurated more than a century of special relations between East and West. Yet even well after their reigns, their successors continued this tradition of mutual discovery, which inspired reflection among intellectuals in the Age of Enlightenment that reverberated far beyond the borders of France and the Middle Kingdom.While the missionaries successfully introduced Western science to the ancient Chinese, the spread of Christianity was overshadowed, as the teachings of Confucius and Lao Tzu remain deeply rooted in ancient Chinese tradition. This in turn left a profound impression on the missionaries and they brought these ancient Chinese teachings back to Europe. In particular, Confucian philosophy was much admired by European philosophers to better understand heaven and nature.
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