Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
The Great Victory of Qurman
after a drawing by Giovanni Damasceno Salusti
Not on view
This print depicts a battle in 1759, toward the end of the Qianlong Emperor’s (r. 1735–96) campaign in East Turkestan (1755–59). In the foreground the Manchu cavalry, backed with cannons pulled by camels and horses, rout the enemies wielding long spears.
The Qianlong Emperor commemorated his military success by ordering court artists, including four European missionaries, to produce paintings of the campaign. The missionaries then made reduced drawings of those paintings and shipped them to Paris to be engraved and printed. A fragment of the original Qurman painting is displayed to the left.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
