Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the various ways in how South Asian elephants were deployed for conceptualizing China’s imperial spaces. Further, it discusses how the representations of the imperial spaces are imagined as sites for elite and sovereign self-identification with cross-cultural gifts and objects.

Paper long abstract:

South Asian elephants enjoyed a momentous status in early-modern histories as both the subject and object of long-distance commercial interactions and vibrant global encounters. Their transterritorial and indeed global movement shaped imperial projections, ways of practicing power, and their significance even paralleled the history of the state. In Qing China, South Asian elephants were engaged in state-led local festivals and performances and thus established urban spectacles that shaped the public perceptions of imperial spaces and conveyed political messages. This paper explores the various ways in how South Asian elephants (which travelled globally) were deployed for conceptualizing China’s imperial spaces. Further, it discusses how the representations of the imperial spaces are imagined as sites for elite and sovereign self-identification with cross-cultural gifts and objects. Based on these discussions, the paper reflects upon the nature of French chinoiserie, particularly through a cross-cultural comparison between Francois Boucher (1703-1770) and his counterparts in the Qing court, arguing that the European representations of China’s imperial spaces that flooded the early modern visual and decorative arts went far beyond an accurate, ethnographic representation, or a pure desire of the “luxurious Other.” Mediated through the elephants’ global movement, instead, these representations became major sites for crosscultural encounters, entanglements, and self-projections – an aspect that the current interpretive framework of the chinoiserie has largely ignored.