91* The gradual decline of the Qing Dynasty follow- ing the death of the Emperor JiaQing in 1820 heralded the end of a 150 year period of collecting magnifi- cent clocks, watches and instruments by the Emperors and the Imperial Court. At its height, the Emperor Qianlong is thought to have owned some 4000 spread between the Palaces of Jehol, the Yuanming-Yuan and the Forbidden City in Peking. These included pieces made in the Imperial workshops established in Beijing, Guangzhou and Suzhou, in addition to the exceptional European clocks emanating mainly from London and also Switzer- land. When the last Qing Emperor Puyi was obliged to abdicate and eventually leave the Forbidden City in 1924, this extraor- dinary collection had, despite much destruction and looting, re- mained virtually unseen and largely forgotten for many decades. Only when the Palace Museum was established in 1925 were the clocks able to be viewed. The first catalogue that brought a selec- tion of them to public notice, certainly in the West, was written in 1933 by Simon Harcourt-Smith, an English diplomat working for the British Legation in Beijing and a considerable expert on Archaeology and Art. This rare book, illustrating and describing some 120 pieces, concentrates on clocks and objects from English makers. Reprinted below is the introduction that prefaces the de- scriptions, and provides an interesting, albeit brief history of the Collection as it was understood at the time. The Jiaqing Emperor (13 November 1760 – 2 September 1820), was the fifth Qing emperor, from 1796 to 1820 隨著1820年嘉慶皇帝的駕崩,整個清朝也逐漸沒落,這意味著一個歷時 150年,曾為宮廷王朝重視奢華珍貴的鐘錶和樂器的收藏時代,正式結 束了。在最輝煌時期,是乾隆帝收藏了約4000件珍品,分別存放在熱河 避暑山莊,圓明園及紫禁城等地,這些珍貴的收藏品中,除了有獨特非 凡的歐洲鐘錶外,最主要的大都來自倫敦和瑞士,當然也有些來自北 京,廣州和蘇州的朝廷御用鐘錶工匠所製的中國式鐘錶。1924年中國末 代皇帝溥儀退位,離開紫禁城後,這些收藏品雖經歷破壞毀損,搶劫等 等災難,仍然被世人遺忘,從未被提及。直到1925年故宮博物院的成 立,這些精品才被公開,而在1933年由北京駐華大使館的英國外交官, 對考古學及藝術極專精研究的Simon Harcourt-Smith所著的第一本圖錄書 刊,介紹給西方國家,這時總算公開於全世界了。這本罕見的書刊,主 要針對120件英國考古文物及鐘錶,做詳細說明介紹。以下是關於此座 鐘收藏的精彩歷史,我們做一些重點摘錄。 Taste for clocks and other mechanical curiosities of the West seems to have invaded the court of China at an early date; already at the beginning of the fourteenth century a French ironsmith, Guillaume Boucher, probably a prisoner brought back from some Mongol raid into Hungary, had constructed for the first Yuan Emperor of China an elaborate clock with fountains; and when, in 1599, the great Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci arrived in Peking he secured Imperial favour and an entry to the Court largely by a gift of clocks. It was, however, only at the end of the seventeenth century, in the reign of Kang Hsi, that clocks in great numbers began to invade the Palace. This enlightened monarch, who was filled with an admiration, rare in his dynasty, for the arts and sciences of Europe, welcomed learned Jesuit mathematicians and philosophers to his Court, and formed a collection of scientific instruments and time-pieces of all descriptions. So great in fact was his passion for horology, that the Society of Jesus, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, found it necessary to despatch to Peking an accomplished clockmaker, Father Stadlin, under whose direction a small factory for the manufacture of clocks and watches was set up within the Palace walls. From this time until the dissolution of the Order in 1773-4, there was always a Jesuit in charge of the Emperor’s clocks. Yung Cheng did not share K’ang Hsi’s liberal tastes, but Chien Lung; while affecting to despise the West, could not escape from inheriting in some part the romantic and speculative spirit of his grandfather. During his reign clocks and mechanical toys of beauty and ingenuity never before seen flowed into China from the West at the rate of some thousands a year. In the Imperial Palaces at Peking, Yuan Ming Yuan, and Jehol the passage of the hours was marked by a fluttering of enamelled wings, a gushing of glass fountains and a spinning of paste stars, while from a thousand concealed and whirring orchestras, the gavottes and minuets of London rose strangely into the Chinese air. Lord Macartney during his Embassy to Peking in 1793 remarked the presence of European clocks in great quantities in all the Imperial halls and pavilions which he visited; and indeed at that time the Emperor’s collection of clocks and watches must have been the finest in the world. In the last hundredyears, however, it has fallen upon somewhat evil days. Some of the finest pieces have been spoiled by clumsy restorations and inept additions; others have been broken beyond repair, and an enormous quantity destroyed or lost in the looting of Yuan Ming Yuan in 1860, that of the Forbidden City in 1900, and in the troubles of the last twenty years. That part which remains, and which is briefly described in the accompanying catalogue, can therefore only represent but a fraction of Chien Lungs famous collection. With the exception of about six pieces, all the clocks and watches which I have been able to examine in the two museums are of a date subsequent to 1760; no traces can be found of Matteo Riccis clocks or of the pieces committed by Kang Hsi to the care of Father Stadlin, neither are there any remains of the clocks by the famous Vulliamy, mounted in Derby ware vases which were brought out to China by Lord Macartney as a present from George Ill. Contrary to popular belief, hardly any of the pieces herein described are of French workmanship, or can have been presents from foreign governments to the Court of China; of the complicated and curious pieces, those signed COX are known to have originally formed part of that makers famous museum of mechanical curiosities exhibited in Spring Gardens in l773 and subsequently sent out to his shop in Canton, while the others were undoubtedly acquired through the intermedians of the East India Company at Canton. The collection, although but a fragment of former glories, is nevertheless one of the most important of its kind in existence; it is at once a monument of English mechanical skill and fine workmanship, and a valuable document bearing on the history of Sino-European commerce in the eighteenth century. The fact that most of the pieces extant have been preserved in such excellent condition, we have to thank firstly the dry air of Peking, and in no small measure the intelligent care and skill with which the clocks have been handled by the present Museum authorities; to them and to Mr. Yuan Tung-li, Director of the National Library, l must extend my thanks for assistance and encouragement in the compilation of this Catalogue. Simon Harcourt-Smith Peking, January, l933. Harcourt-Smith (Simon) A Catalogue of Various Clocks, Watches, Automata, and other miscellaneous objects of European Workmanship dating from the XVIIIth and the early XIXth Centuries, in the Palace Museum and the Wu Ying Tien, Peiping, Palace Museum Publication, 1933.