The Pictures of Cotton in Eighteenth-century China

Abstract

<p><em>The Pictures of Cotton in 18th-century China</em> narrates cotton’s journey into the classical heritage of China. In the 12th century, cotton, an imported crop, was plucked from the fields and entered the margins of texts. In agricultural treatises, the material was eventually “acknowledged” as cotton, an object distinct from silk worthy of representation. By the late 16th century, representations of the plant and of the labor used to process it were incorporated into agricultural publications. In the 18th century, cotton imagery and discussions were situated in imperial encyclopedias, gaining a classical legacy. For the Governor-general Fang Guancheng (1696/8-1768) cotton was deemed a worthy subject for painting. In 1765, he designed the <em>Pictures of Cotton</em>, a series of sixteen paintings complete with commentary that delineated the processes of growing cotton and manufacturing fabric from it. He presented the <em>Pictures of Cotton</em> to the Qianlong emperor (r. 1735-96) who inscribed his personal verse on each scene. Knowledge about the fiber became a means to collaborate at the highest level of the court and bureaucracy. The <em>Pictures of Cotton</em> literally became the authoritative vision of cotton. With imperial permission, Fang replicated the series, complete with imperial verses into carved stone. The steles were positioned in his residence, enabling the public to take rubbings from the stones, further disseminating knowledge about cotton production. Qianlong’s son, the Jiaqing emperor (r.1796-1821) published the <em>Pictures of Cotton</em> as woodblock prints. Upon domestication, cotton advanced political legitimacy, a commodity that attained canonical status in the Qing imperium. </p>