Why Was There No Chinese Painting of Marco Polo? The Vexed Art of Itinerancy

EUGENE WANG

Why Was Th ere No Chinese Painting of Marco Polo?

Th e vexed art of itinerancy

Why was there no Chinese painting of Marco Polo’s travel to Yuan China? 1 Th e question is tricky, if not downright ill-considered, since there is no extant account of his travels in Chinese sources, let alone a painting on the subject. Historians have long-since accounted for the absence of any corroborative Chinese account of his extensive career in Yuan China,2 thus it is pointless to belabour the point. Nor does it make any sense to recycle the recent assertion that Marco Polo never went to China in the fi rst place. Many specialists on the subject have convincingly put that suggestion to rest.3 In fact, it makes more sense to use Marco Polo as a means of raising the following general art historical questions rather than to dwell on his itinerancy in China: What were the chances that a European traveller would have been pictured in Yuan (1271–1368) China? How would he have been portrayed? Were the odds stacked against Europeans being portrayed in a straightforward way? In other words, was the faithful portraiture of individual foreign visitors a well-es-tablished pictorial convention at the time, or were they typically subsumed into genres other than portraits? And, fi nally, can we extrapolate some morals about the art of itinerancy from this historical case study?

Fortunately we do have a good case study by which we can elucidate these issues. Half a century after Polo’s departure from China, a Florentine named Giovanni Marignolli (fl . 1338–1353) travelled to Yuan China in 1342 as a papal emissary. He was recognised by Yuan China far more than Marco Polo ever was. Not only did the Chinese write about his visit, it also inspired some paintings. At least three fourteenth-century Chinese artists—Zhou Lang, Zhang Yanfu, and Ren Xianzuo (ca. 1287–1358)—painted in response to the event.

Two versions of this—by Zhou and Ren respectively—are extant. Th e fi rst (fi g. 1, pl. IV) is a painting by Zhou Lang.4 Th e second version is a set of similar scrolls: the master scroll, which was painted by Ren Xianzuo and dates to 1342, is now in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing (fi g. 2, pl. Va). 5 Although the surviving scroll is truncated or cropped, a more comprehensive composition sur-vives in a copy made by Ren Xianzuo’s son, Ren Bowen, and was produced some years later (fi g. 3, pl. Vb). Th e son’s work included the portion at the beginning that had been cut out of the father’s scroll. 6

Of the two versions, Zhou’s (fi g. 1, pl. IV) was commissioned by the Yuan court, while the Ren version (fi g. 2, pl. Va) was presented to the court in hopes of gaining offi cial recognition.7 A comparison between the two versions reveals that Zhou made some curious decisions in the court-commissioned work. To begin with, there is a striking contrast between Zhou’s monochrome ink version and Ren’s full

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86 EUGENE WANG

polychrome treatment. Although one might reasonably expect that this ceremonial occasion would have deserved all the pomp and circumstance the artist could mus-ter, Zhou’s understated monochrome treatment appears, to our modern eyes, to have given the event short shrift. Just as striking is Zhou’s indiff erence towards the empirical facts about the European envoy and the gifts presented. By contrast, Ren’s version apparently makes a point of capturing the specifi c details. It estab-lishes the travellers’ identities as decidedly foreign. For instance, a fi ne distinction is made between a Caucasian-looking man—an imaginary portrait of Giovanni Marignolli—and his dark-complexioned South Asian-looking escort; indeed, we

Fig.1: Zhou Lang, Tribute Horse from Europe, handscroll, 1342 (Ming copy?), Beijing, Palace Museum.

Fig. 2: Ren Xianzuo, Tribute Bearers, handscroll, 1342, Beijing, Palace Museum.


87WHY WAS THERE NO CHINESE PAINTING OF MARCO POLO?

know that Giovanni Marignolli’s itinerancy included South Asia. Ren’s version also evokes the travellers’ itinerancy through a number of other suggestive details. Th e exotic Persian- or Central Asian style saddle designs, for instance, hint at his exten-sive travels through foreign countries before reaching the fi nal destination in China. By contrast, these carefully rendered details make Zhou’s version, where the horse is depicted unsaddled and there is no indication about its origins or about the itin-erancy of its rider, all the more curious.

In Zhou’s version it is clearly the horse that trumps everything else about the scene. Th e painting reveals no interest in the event of the European delegation’s


88 EUGENE WANG

visit: Nowhere in the composition is there a fi gure that even remotely suggests a European, and the papal gift horse is clearly the primary subject of the painting. Even on the subject of the horse, Zhou’s painting is free with the empirical facts. Th e court record specifi es that the European gift horse was “totally black [complex-ion], and that its two rear hooves are white.” 8 According to this description it may have resembled the black steed with two white rear hooves used by the Ming em-peror, Xuanzong, (1398–1435) for hunting,9 or it may have been similar to the Dutch Warmblood, a thoroughbred breed from Gelderland and Groningen. By contrast, Zhou’s version presents a mottled horse, instead of a “pitch-black” one, with four white hooves. What could this mean?

Circumstances: the Celestial Steed as omen

To further elucidate the circumstances surrounding Zhou’s work, I will begin with a discussion of the emperor and his entourage (fi g. 1, pl. IV), who are depicted in anachronistic sartorial styles. For instance, the emperor is dressed as a Mongol ruler—or a generic Great Khan; however, none of his attendants wears a Yuan-pe-riod robe.10 What is the reason for this discrepancy? Th e answer lies in the accepted trope of the emperor as the “son of heaven.” Traditional Chinese discourse typically compared the emperor to the North Star, also known as the Emperor Star, which was attended by constellations and planetary deities—Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, etc.11 Among them, Mercury invariably appears as a young female holding a brush. Th us, it comes as no surprise that in Zhou’s painting a brush-wield-ing lady appears behind the emperor, apparently intended to suggest the presence of Mercury attending the Emperor Star. Because the Mercury deity typically wears a “monkey-crown” its appearance here in connection with the Emperor Star was not unusual. At the time this pictorial convention was used to make this Mercury/monkey association explicit, as can also be seen in another thirteenth-century

Fig. 3: Ren Bowen, Tribute Bearers, handscroll, late 1340s, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Avery Brundage Collection.



painting (fi g. 4).12 Th e monkey connection was also considered a fi tting reference to the emperor’s biography. Not only was Emperor Shundi, Toghōn Temür (1320–1370) born in the year of monkey (1320), at the age of twelve, before he ascended the throne, he was exiled to the southeast coastal region (in the area that is now Guilin) where he befriended a troop of monkeys. His affi nity for the creatures was attributed to his birth year. 13

However, even more symbolic weight was invested in representations of Mer-cury. Th e planetary deity was often compared to the Imperial Secretariat,14 a top-echelon government agency that formulated policies and promulgated the rul-er’s orders.15 Months before Marignolli’s arrival in China, Emperor Shundi ap-pointed two Grand Councillors to the Imperial Secretariat: Toghtō, as the senior Grand Councillor, and another Mongol offi cial as the assistant Grand Councillor.16 Th ese two were, in eff ect, the highest ranked civil offi cials in the empire.17 Th is goes some way towards explaining why two female astral deities fl ank the young Shundi, and likewise, why two bearded ministers attend to the emperor in his adult appear-ance in Zhou’s painting.

Th e prominence of the Grand Councillors—in particular, Toghtō—attending the throne in Zhou’s painting is also no coincidence. Toghtō had shown steadfast loyalty to Toghōn Temür during the young ruler’s early years.18 Toghōn Temür was a mere thirteen-years old when he ascended the throne in 1333 as the tenth em-peror of the Yuan dynasty, and Chancellor Bayan (d. 1340) became the de facto power-wielding ruler. Bayan was, in fact, the primary mover behind the circum-stances that led to Marignolli’s visit to China. He was distressed by the political and cultural landscape of the China that he saw around him. Th e hierarchical struc-tures, real or imagined, of the good old days of the early Yuan rule under Khubilai (r. 1260–94) were becoming increasingly blurred. Ethnic Chinese were learning Mongolian and adopting Mongolian names while the Mongols themselves were doing the opposite and eagerly embracing Chinese culture. Bayan wanted to re-verse the situation and to redraw ethnic lines by reinforcing non-Chinese privileges


90 EUGENE WANG

and rule in China. It was against this backdrop that the Bayan administration dis-patched an embassy in 1336 to the papal curia to request that the Catholic author-ity extend its religious infl uence to Yuan China.

By the time the European delegates reached Beijing in 1342, however, the polit-ical landscape had changed. Bayan’s harsh measures had gone too far. One of his cruellest initiatives was the 1337 proposal to exterminate members of the ethnic Chinese population bearing the family names of Zhang, Wang, Liu, Li, and Zhao. Th e emperor, Toghōn Temür, seventeen-years-old at the time, had the good sense to reject this measure. In 1340, with the help of Toghtō, Bayan’s conscionable nephew, the emperor succeeded in ousting Bayan. Th e post-Bayan administration reversed all of the ethnic-cleansing measures and harsh policies of the Bayan years. Th us, by the time the European embassy reached Beijing, the cultural politics that had driven the initial Yuan appeal to the papal curia in 1336 was already history. Furthermore, Benedict XII (d. 1342), who had become pope in 1334, died the same year that Marignolli reached China. Whatever symbolic signifi cance the papal curia had invested in its gifts to China were no longer of consequence. Amongst the many gifts brought by the delegation only the European horse was not reduced to the status of an insignifi cant toy or plaything; quite the contrary, it continued to

Fig. 4: Th e Planet Deity Mercury attended by a Monkey, hanging scroll mounted as panel, early 13th century, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.



have a great deal of value for Yuan China, though of a kind unanticipated by the papal authority.

Seen as a gift sent from heaven, the papal horse played into a culture obsessed with omens, that is, with manifestations of the heavenly mandate. Any unusual signs—astral aberrations, abnormal phenomena in the physical world, or sudden appearances of unusual fauna and fl ora—would have been construed as an intima-tion from heaven.19

In this context, the arrival of the papal horse in the seventh month of 1342 was particularly timely. A few months earlier, Toghōn Temür had discharged Bayan and replaced Toghtō as his trusted senior advisor. Th e year 1341 marked Toghtō’s ascen-sion to the top administrative position and the beginning of a new era known as “Toghtō’s Reform.” With the reign title changed to Zhizheng (1341–1370), all things “under heaven” were seen as entering a cycle of renewal.20 Typically, such occasions would have been celebrated with great fanfare. Gifts and tributes from distant lands were particularly welcome, as they signifi ed peace under heaven.

Th e European delegates and the Yuan Chinese court were thus meeting at cross-purposes. Marignolli wanted to convert the Yuan emperor to the Catholic Church, and the Yuan court was far more interested in the signifi cance of the Eu-ropean horse as an auspicious omen for Toghtō’s new administration. With these varied motives in the background, it comes as no surprise that the European and Chinese accounts of the event diff er vastly. Marignolli, for instance, recalled:

… we came to Cambalec [i.e. Dadu; Beijing], the chief seat of the Empire of the East. Of its incredible magnitude, population, and military array, we will say nothing. But the Grand Kaam, when he beheld the great horses,21 and the Pope’s presents, with his letter, and King Robert’s too, with their golden seals, and when he saw us also, re-joiced greatly, being delighted, yea exceedingly delighted with everything, and treated us with the greatest honour. And when I entered the Kaam’s presence it was in full festival vestments, with a very fi ne cross carried before me, and candles and incense, while Credo in Unum Deum was chaunted, in that glorious palace where he dwells. And when the chaunt was ended I bestowed a full benediction, which he received with all humility.22

His account is a credible one, as the description of a Catholic liturgical procession and the chanting of the choir has an empirical basis.23 By the time Marignolli vis-ited China, the Roman Catholic Church had already established a foothold in Beijing and other Chinese cities. Indeed, the choir of the cathedral was so loud that it could be heard even in the imperial court compounds.

Ren’s painting, the unoffi cial version, indirectly testifi es to this reality. Th e more comprehensive composition by Ren Bowen (fi g. 3), in particular, registers the pen-etration of Christian culture into fourteenth-century Chinese awareness. For in-stance, the European man is depicted in a red gown with his long dark hair worn down over his shoulders (fi g. 3, pl. Vb). Th is depiction reveals that the painter probably associated the papal embassy with what he vaguely understood to be Asian Christians—Nestorians, Manichaeans, etc.––even though these groups had


92 EUGENE WANG

Fig. 5: Young man, wall painting from Nestorian Temple at Khocho, 602–654 CE, Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst ‒

Preußischer Kulturbesitz.



Fig. 6: Jesus Christ as a Manichaean Prophet, hanging scroll, 14th century, Kōshū, Yamanashi Prefecture, Tenmokusan Seiiun-ji.


94 EUGENE WANG

long-since broken from mainstream Christianity. Indeed, historical Nestorian fi g-ures were often depicted with this hairstyle (fi g. 5)24, and images of Manichaeans also frequently included this type of hairstyle (fi g. 6).25 Founded by Manes in Persia in the third century, Manichaeism was a religious practice that mixed Christian, Gnostic, and pagan elements.26 It extended its infl uence to China in the seventh century, and by the fourteenth century it had merged with secret societies and reli-gious sects such as the White Lotus and other Millenarian traditions. Th e distinctive hair was retrofi tted onto Buddhist iconography. Th us, Sakyamuni’s aunt Mahāpra-jāpatī nursing the young Gautama in a fourteenth-century painting is depicted with the same hairstyle (fi g. 7).27 Incidentally, in this painting Mahāprajāpatī is also de-picted in the guise of the Virgin Mary. In Buddhist iconographic conventions she had never been shown holding an infant boy. However, the Christian subject mas-querading as Buddhist iconography here is unmistakable.28 Marignolli’s account of the Catholic pomp, and the circumstances surrounding his audience with the Yuan emperor is therefore entirely credible.

Th at is the Italian side of the story; but what of the Chinese? Th e Yuan court’s offi cial account begins with a detailed profi le of the physical attributes of the papal gift horse.29 It notes that the rider, with “yellow hair, beards, and blue eyes,” spoke an incomprehensible language, and that the horse had accomplished “seven ocean-crossings” before he reached the “Middle Kingdom.” Emperor Shundi is said to have come to Ciren Hall to view the European horse and was visibly impressed by it. He decreed that the horse be kept at the imperial stable (Tianxian), be fed with meat, grain, and alcohol-milk,30 and that Kangli Naonao (1295–1345),31 the director of the Hanlin Academy and the emperor’s tutor, commission a skilful painter to capture its likeness.32 Zhou Lang was Naonao’s painter of choice.

Fig. 7: Wang Zhenpeng, Mahāprajāpatī Nursing the Infant Buddha, handscroll, 14th century, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.



Celestial Steed: picturing the voices of eulogy and beyond

Th e Chinese offi cial account consists of two parts: fi rst, the prose preface that re-cords the event and details the empirical facts; second, an ode to the celestial horse. Ren’s painting is tantamount to the prose version; it is prosaic in disposition, suffi -cient care is taken to record empirical facts, details, and trivia, and it is set in the “real world.” In comparison, Zhou’s painting is a pictorial ode set in a mytho-geog-raphy. It is crucial to keep this distinction in mind when looking at these two pieces, otherwise we would be hard pressed to explain the single most confounding aspect of Zhou’s painting: It is supposed to depict the Italian’s meeting with the Yuan emperor. Had the scenario here been intended to document a real-life situa-tion, a Yuan painter would have likely been cautiously decorous in picturing the hierarchic order and the supremacy of the emperor. Even the horses would have been depicted in accordance with this convention. For instance, an early Yuan painting by Liu Guandao (fl . 1264–1294) depicting Kublai Khan’s (r. 1260–1294) hunting excursion shows the attendants’ horses lowering their heads in abject sub-mission to the great khan in the centre.33 By contrast, the horse in Zhou’s painting shares the centre stage with the emperor (fi g. 1, pl. IV); it is the indisputable focus of attention, exhibiting none of the equestrian submission seen in Liu Guandao’s painting. Zhou gets away with this seemingly indecorous manner of depiction pre-cisely because his painting has shifted genre. No longer a documentary depiction, it transcended a real-world situation by staging it as a period drama. Figures appear in period costumes, which are decidedly not fourteenth century. Th e painting’s real subject, therefore, is a mythological “heavenly horse.”

Th e lore of heavenly steed(s) revolves around Emperor Wudi, who ruled the expansive Han Empire around 100 BCE. Wudi obtained horses from the Western Region, which he took to be an auspicious omen, a sign of the heavenly mandate for peace and prosperity under his rule. Th e proverbial heavenly horse had inspired paintings long before Zhou Lang’s time (fi g. 8), and it also attracted a sizeable body of rhapsodic writing. Th ese writings were codifi ed into a set formula. Nowhere is this more evident than in the poetic essays required for the imperial recruitment examination. Th e “Ode to Heavenly Horse” was one of the designated essay topics used in the 1314 and 1333 exams, and exemplary odes from the top-ranked candi-dates circulated as woodblock-printed primers among aspiring imperial-exam can-didates.34 One can thus easily gauge the formulaic nature of such writing. It is also revealing that some of the top-ranked candidates who went on to become high-ranking offi cials in the capital city of Beijing were amongst those who com-posed eulogies to the European horse. It is safe to say that they had learned a script for such descriptions well before the European horse arrived in 1342. Indeed, they would not have even had to observe the horse closely before the words began to roll from their tongues or fl ow from their brushes.

Th e fourteenth-century rhapsodies on the legendary heavenly horse followed a set template. Because the heavenly horse hails from the far west (“west of the West-ern Region”), it was imagined to have sprung from the water. Th e reason for this is


96 EUGENE WANG

that the far west is, in traditional Chinese mytho-geography, a pond where the sun and moon sink daily. And because a dragon is the creature seen to best epitomise the spirit of water, the heavenly horse is conceived of as a “dragon horse.”35

In the mid–1340s, shortly after Marignolli’s presentation of the papal horse in 1342, a decorative design for a blue-and-white porcelain vase came into currency.36 Th e vase features six galloping, seafaring horses, each framed in a scalloped enclo-sure with an upward opening leading to a fl ying dragon above (fi g. 9). Th e design fully visualises the imaginary scenario that was often described in the odes to the celestial steed: it arises from water and has the disposition of a fl ying dragon. Th e numerology of six is also signifi cant here, since a set of “six fl ying horses” is said to be the vehicle used in the Son of Heaven’s far-fl ung tour.

Zhou’s painting is subtler in evoking the celestial. In light of the mythical con-text of the celestial steed, the painter took care to leave the horse unsaddled (fi g. 1, pl. IV). Th us, it harmonises in spirit with the seafaring horse on the porcelain vase and suggests the primordial condition out of which it arose. It is also tempting to speculate about possible correlations between the painting’s formal features and the aptness with which certain topographic associations are evoked. Th e ink wash, nearly absent in other parts of the painting, is applied here liberally on the horse’s body. It either intentionally or inadvertently evokes the appearance of a horse emerging fresh from the water. More likely, the liberal wash does what it is expected

Fig. 8: Earthenware jar with Celestial Steed, Western Han dynasty (206 BCE – 9 CE), Zürich, Museum Rietberg.



to do, that is, evoke tonal resonances and musical qualities (yun). If the contempo-rary examination offi cials’ comments on the examinees’ essays regarding the “Dragon Horse” are of any use in understanding this image, they do reveal certain aesthetic criteria with which the scholar-offi cials evaluated students’ essays. One of these was “haunting rhythms.”37

Other details (fi g. 1, pl. IV) hint at the painter’s ingenious adaptation and inter-nalisation of familiar tropes and conceits accrued to the heavenly-horse lore. One court offi cial who saw the European horse, praised its “tiger’s glare and dragon’s prance.”38 Th is drew on stock phrases typically associated with the celestial steed. Th e painter played his part in perpetuating these formulations: Th e tiger-patterned robe of the imperial guard reiterates the “tiger’s glare.”39

Th e horse enacts the role of the legendary celestial steed of China’s antiquity, and its affi nity with the Son of Heaven, past and present, was therefore assumed. Th e ancient ruler’s excursions typically involved an entourage that included fi erce sword-bearing warriors or imperial guards (huben).40 Th is ceremonial convention explains the curious appearance of the European horse’s two attendants (fi g. 1, pl. IV). Th eir Chinese-style robes indicate that they are not foreigners,41 but rather the proverbial imperial lifeguards (huben) of antiquity. Th e scenario here is focused not so much on a Western horse as on a celestial steed—the “Western” and “heavenly” are synonymous in traditional parlance. Moreover, the military offi cer wears a civil-ian robe over his military outfi t. Th e sartorial undertone in this gesture is clear: now it is a time of peace and prosperity—a theme recurrent in courtly odes to auspi-cious omens. In short, Zhou’s painting is a visual eulogy to the legendary “celestial steed,” not a documentary reportage of the arrival of a European horse.

Fig. 9: Porcelain jar with seafaring horses

and fl ying dragon, late 1340s, collection unknown.


98 EUGENE WANG

Because the painting was executed in the vein of an ode, it has a poetic voice. Indeed, some fourteenth-century Chinese writers took it upon themselves to speak on behalf of Europe, despite the fact that no one had invited them to do so. For in-stance, a man named Wang Yi (1321–1372) wrote “Presenting a Heavenly Horse: on behalf of the Kingdom of Farang [i.e., Europe].”42 Th e essay assumes the voice of a humble vassal in a foreign land, “west of the Western Region.” In a self-deprecat-ing tone, the speaker admits the “poverty” of his own country. Admiring Chinese civilisation, he sends the horse as a tribute and submits to the Yuan emperor. Wang Yi, a native of Yiwu, in the southeast coast of China, had never seen the European horse fi rst-hand. In fact, his journey to the Yuan capital of Dadu in 1348 was prob-ably his fi rst visit. As a provincial visitor to the metropolis, however, he did not mince his words in criticising the rampant corruption he saw around him. It is not hard to see why he assumed a European voice. Both—a Yiwu native and the im-agined voice of a European vassal state—were outsiders to the capital Dadu, and both could therefore speak from an outsider’s perspective. Zhou Lang, the court-des-ignated painter of the European horse, also hailed from southeast coastal China.43 He would have likewise found it easy to relate to Wang Yi’s outsider’s stance.

Zhou’s decision to paint the heavenly horse as a mottled one (fi g. 1, pl. IV) in-stead of pitch-black, as the court record suggests, is deliberate. Th e mottled horse is identifi able as the equestrian type known as the “Jade Flower.” Th e name recalls the Tang emperor Xuanzong’s (685–762; r. 712–756) favourite stallion, once pic-tured by the eighth-century artist Cao Ba, and made famous by the poet Du Fu (712–770).44 Th e scenario in which the Son of Heaven comes to see his heavenly horse being painted appears to be the underlying script or template at play here. For any educated elite, the painting would have recalled Du Fu’s poem, the subject of which was Cao Ba, a one-time imperially recognised horse painter. Although Cao eventually lapsed into oblivion after the mid-eighth-century upheaval caused by the An-Shi Rebellion, the poem recalls the glorious years of the Kaiyuan reign (713–741) when the painter, in the prime of his career, was summoned to the em-peror’s throne to paint his favourite stallion, the Jade Flower, also known as the “heavenly steed.” Cao’s painting was a source of wonder. It “enlivened the dragon of heaven, dashing through to make slight of all ordinary horses ever born… A veracious comparison to its real self.” So pleased was the emperor with the work that he awarded the painter gold, “leaving the stable offi cers and keepers dejected and despondent.” But the poem eventually shifts from those good old days to the present, that is, to the post-Kaiyuan years when the once noble painter was reduced to the status of a poverty-stricken commoner, receiving “disdainful looks and cold shoulders,” with all his erstwhile fame and reputation fading into oblivion. Whether intentional or not, Zhou’s composition cues this voice, which would have been familiar to his contemporary Yuan viewers. Instrumental to the shaping of this voice was Ouyang Xuan (1283–1357), one of the offi cial eulogisers of the Euro-pean horse, who made his name in the imperial recruitment examination of 1314. Th e topic for the exam in his region was an Ode to the Heavenly Horse, and he was ranked among the top four candidates in the region. Th is means that Ouyang and



his followers had a “script” which they used to describe the papal gift horse even before it reached China.

Seven Seas

Th e formulaic nature of the perception of the European horse cannot be overstated. To be sure, the fourteenth-century Chinese easily turned a real European equestrian presence into yet another replay of the old mythic scenario in which the sudden appearance of a Western, or “heavenly,” horse was conceived as an auspicious omen for the new era. However, it is one thing to see the European horse as an epitome of an ancient myth; it is quite another when one actually confronts a real horse from a really distant land. It must have been cognitively both a challenging and exhilarating experience. Th e long-cherished mytho-geography now came face-to-face with real geography. Th e horse, after all, hailed from the real west of the Western Region.

Previous tributes and gifts to the Yuan court had come in many dazzling forms, ranging from elephants, rhinoceros, dark monkeys, white tigers, peacocks, or even Japanese captives from Korea.45 Th ere had even been numerous instances of prefec-tures and foreign lands sending horses as tributes or gifts in Yuan times before 1342.46 Th e most recent, prior to the European gift horse in 1342, was a tribute consisting of “Western horse[s],” wine, and exotic birds sent by Tarmashrin Khan (r. 1331–1334), the khan of the Chagatai Khanate, in 1332.47 None of these previous gift horses merited an offi cial commission of painting, however. Only the tributes of a diff erent kind, those containing some “auspicious grain,” one of the prototypical omens favoured by rulers since antiquity,48 received serious attention. Although the emperor commissioned Zhao Mengfu, one of the most eminent scholar-offi cials of the time, to picture the “auspicious grain,”49 the Yuan court had not commissioned paintings of any previous foreign tribute horses. Th is reveals how much symbolic weight was attached to the European horse in 1342 as a truly “celestial steed” from the “moon grotto,” materialising in China at this time as an auspicious omen.50

By 1342, the Chinese had gained a practical geographic knowledge of the world. Th e scholar-offi cials eulogising the papal horse repeatedly spoke of the “Seven Seas” separating Europe and China. Both medieval Arabian and European sources men-tion “Seven Seas,” though they vary in their diff erent sets of seven. In fact, the Chinese knowledge of the Seven Seas most likely came from the Arabs. Th e ninth-century Muslim author Ya’qubi, for instance, spoke of the need to cross “Seven Seas” before reaching China:

Whoever wants to go to China must cross seven seas, each one with its own color and wind and fi sh and breeze, completely unlike the sea that lies beside it. Th e fi rst of them is the Sea of Fars, which men sail setting out from Siraf. It ends at Ra’s al-Jumha; it is a strait where pearls are fi shed. … Th e seventh sea is called the sea of Sanji, also known as Kanjli. It is the sea of China; one is driven by the south wind until one reaches a freshwater bay, along which are fortifi ed places and cities, until one reaches Khanfu [Guangzhou].51


100 EUGENE WANG

A quick comparison of Ash-Sharif al-Idrīsī’s World Map of 1154 and a traditional Chinese world map suggests two worldviews.52 Th e Arabian map is organised around the Seven Seas; and the Chinese map around Four Seas. Th e Seven-Sea view was seen as practical geography; in contrast, the Four-Sea view was seen as classical knowledge. Th e new concept of the “Seven Seas” apparently unsettled and renewed the Chinese geographic imagination of the world. Probably taking cues from the Arabs, in the fourteenth century the Chinese made strides in producing naviga-tional maps of the real world. Th e 1402 Kangnido map in Korea, for instance, confl ates two fourteenth-century Chinese maps that were produced in 1330 and 1370 respectively.53 Th e fourteenth century also saw a resurgent Chinese interest in the Western Region and beyond. Th e tale that dramatises the seventh-century monk Xuanzang’s journey to the West, popularly known as the monkey story, also took shape around this time in both pictorial and written forms.54 Th e arrival of Marignolli’s European horse in 1342 may have sparked and spurred this surging in-terest in the Western world. Meanwhile, the cognitive mapping based on old mytho-geographic models died hard. In fact, it trumped practical geographic know-ledge in most cases.

Conclusion

How does our story speak to the theme of the volume; that is, to the art of itiner-ancy? Th e case highlights several issues and reveals new questions in need of an-swers.

Th e fi rst issue concerns boundary-crossing and generic conventions. In this era of globalisation, we now readily speak of geographic boundary-crossing as a cul-tural move. Our study shows that, at the conceptual level, boundary-crossing has to start with a generic transgression. Th e 1342 event suggests the ease with which a geographic and cultural boundary-crossing can be assimilated into a domestic agenda. Th e key was the role played by generic convention in shaping perceptions. Unfettered and freewheeling in imaginary realms, poetry had little use for the em-pirical exactness of a real-world geography; likewise, couched in poetic tropes and allusions as it was, the pictorial ode did not mesh well with cartography. It was therefore very hard for these genres to cross over the established parameters.

Th e second issue concerns the mechanism of cognitive habits. What was the fourteenth- century cognitive problem underlying the Chinese view of the world? How did the reshaping of geographic knowledge occur without the benefi t of our modern maps? For instance, did the change in number—from four seas to seven seas—signifi cantly change the Chinese worldview? And did the mythological im-agination of heavenly horses springing from primordial ponds help the Chinese to become accustomed to the idea of Seven Seas?

Th e third issue is a methodological one. Th is case study reveals an unsettling irony: Th e cultural interaction detailed above belies the perception of entrenched self-absorption and self-isolation in China. Th is irony is worth savouring. Th e



court-commissioned version, apparently artistically more refi ned and nuanced, re-lies on an old cognitive model. In contrast, both Ren’s version and the blue-and-white vase design, displaying a poorer taste, seem to be more engaged with the new reality. Ren’s version is explicit about the arrival of foreign travellers with their dis-tinctly Western-Region hairstyles and exotic sartorial styles; the vase, depicting six seas, is inadvertently closer to the new cognitive map of the “Seven Seas.” Accord-ingly, modern scholars may likewise work with two sets of cognitive models. One is the map-derived form of enquiry typically favoured by historians that looks into images of cross-cultural travels and itinerancy primarily for visual evidence to sub-stantiate narratives of boundary crossings, expansions, diplomacy, and ethnic ten-sions. Art historians—at least some of us—seek to turn this operation on its head. We do not take cross-cultural and boundary-crossing images at face value; instead, we attempt to reveal that such images are not always what they appear to be. In-stead of merely accepting the tribute gift of a European horse, the Yuan Chinese were also projecting their own domestic agenda onto the foreign animal.

We can thus now return to our initial question: Why is there no Chinese paint-ing of Marco Polo? As Marignolli’s case demonstrates, the odds would have been stacked against his chances of depiction. Perhaps Polo would have had a better chance if he had known to bring a horse from the “west of the Western Region” with him. Even so, his Chinese hosts would have been too fi xated on the Heavenly Horse to bothering wasting any ink on him. However, if the new trend signalled by Ren’s painting is any indication, subsequent visitors from the West were to stand a better chance.

Glossary of Chinese Characters

Cao Ba 曹霸Ciren Hall 慈仁殿Dadu 大都Du Fu 杜甫huben 虎賁Kaiyuan 開元Liu Guandao 劉貫道

Ouyang Xuan 歐陽玄Ren Bowen 任伯溫Ren Xianzuo 任賢佐

Shundi 順帝(Toghōn Temür)

Tianxian 天閑Wang Yi 王

Wudi 武帝Xuanzang 玄奘Xuanzong 玄宗

Xuanzong 宣宗Yiwu 義烏yun 韻Zhang Yanfu 張彥輔Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫Zhizheng 至正

Zhou Lang 周朗


102 EUGENE WANG

Notes

1 Th omas Allsen notes that Marco Polo’s Th e Description of the World is “basically a geography, or better yet, an ethnographical geography, not a merchant’s handbook or, as is most commonly as-sumed, a book of travels.” Th omas Allsen, “Th e Cultural Worlds of Marco Polo” Th e Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31, no. 3 (Winter 2001), 375–376.

2 Morgan notes: “… no other Italian merchants, … are mentioned either, and no one would argue that his shows that none visited China during the Mongol period. It may simply be, as has been suggested, that Polo, though in favor at the Mongol court, held no formal offi ce suffi ciently im-portant to gain him entry into the archives.” D.O. Morgan, “Marco Polo in China-Or Not. Re-view of Did Marco Polo Go to China? by Frances Wood” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Th ird Series, 6, no. 2 (July 1996), 223. Allsen, “Th e Cultural Worlds of Marco Polo” (cf. note 1), 376–377.

3 Allsen, “Th e Cultural Worlds of Marco Polo” (cf. note 1), 376–377. 4 Scholars are divided in considering whether the scroll is a Yuan original or a Ming copy. See

Yu Hui 余輝, “Yuandai gongting huihuashi ji jiazuo kaobian 元代宮廷繪畫史及佳作考辨” Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 90, no. 4 (2000), 49–59, esp. 54–55. Th e scroll and context are ex-tensively treated by Lauren Arnold, Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures: Th e Franciscan Mission to China and Its Infl uence on the Art of the West, 1250–1350 (San Francisco: Desiderata Press, 1999).

5 Yu Hui 余輝, “Jiufeng daoren sanjuntu kao 九峰道人三駿圖考” Wenwu, no. 1 (1993), 93–96. 6 Th e scroll, now in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is noted in Sherman Lee and Wai-kam

Ho, Chinese Art under the Mongols: Th e Yü an Dynasty, 1279–1368 (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968), cat. no. 189. A Ming copy of the same scroll, similar to the San Francisco scroll but bearing spurious inscriptions, is in the Freer Gallery, Washington D.C., ink, colour, and gold on silk, 35,2 ×45,8 cm, inv. F1915.16. See Kei Suzuki, Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1982), vol. 1, I–198.

7 Yu, “Jiufeng daoren sanjuntu kao” (cf. note 5), 94. 8 Zhou Boqi 周伯琦 (1298–1369), “Tianmaxing yingzhizuo bing xu 天馬行應制作並序” in Yu-

anshi xuan元詩選, ed. Gu Shili顧嗣立 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1987), 1864. 9 Th e painting, Emperor Xuanzong of Ming in Hunting, ink and colour on silk, 29,5 × 34,6 cm, is

now in the collection of Palace Museum, Beijing.10 Th e Portraits of Four Yuan Scholars in Cincinnati Museum of Art depicts four eminent four-

teenth-century group scholar-offi cials in the Yuan court. See Lee and Ho, Chinese Art under the Mongols (cf. note 6), 81, fi g. 14. Th eir sartorial style gives us a good frame of reference.

11 See Xiao Jun 肖軍, ed., Yonglegong bihua 永樂宮壁畫 (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 2008), 39.12 Th e painting, traditionally attributed to Zhang Sigong 張思恭, is now at the Museum of Fine

Arts, Boston.13 See Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368, ed. Herbert

Franke and Denis Crispin Twitchett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 567.14 See Meng Sihui孟嗣徽, “Wuxing ji nianbaxiu shenxingtu tuxiang kaobian 五星及廿八宿神形圖圖像考辨” Yishushi yanjiu藝術史研究2 (2000), 517–556.

15 Charles Hucker, A Dictionary of Offi cial Titles in Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), 194.

16 Song Lian宋濂, Yuan shi元史 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1976), 860.17 Endicot-West, “Th e Yuan Government and Society” in Cambridge History of China, vol. 6 (cf.

note 13), 589.18 Song, Yuan shi (cf. note 16), 860–861.19 Ibid., 862.20 Ibid., 860.21 Zhou Boqi noted only one papal gift horse. Zhou, Yuanshi xuan (cf. note 8), 1864.22 Henry Yule, Cathay and the Way Hither (London: Hakluyt Society, 1866), vol. 2, 340.23 Tong Xun 洵, “Tianzhujiao zai Meng Yuan diguo de chuanru yiji xiaowang yuanyin chutan 天主教在蒙元帝國的傳入以及消亡原因初探” Zhongguo tianzhujiao 中國天主教, no. 5 (2004), 29–31.



24 For Nestorianism in Asia, see Aubrey R. Vine, Th e Nestorian Churches: Concise History of Nestorian Christianity in Asia from the Persian Schism to the Modern Assyrians (London: Independent Press, 1978).

25 James Watt et al., Th e World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty (New York: Met-ropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 122–124, lists several four-teenth-century images with Manichaen connections.

26 Robert A. Pretty, Adamantius: Dialogue on the True Faith in God (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 9–17. James Robinson, ed., Th e Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2000), vol. 4, 21. Jason BeDuhn and Paul Mirecki, Frontiers of Faith: Th e Christian Encounter with Manichaeism in the Acts of Archelaus (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), 20, 127, 159.

27 Lee and Ho, Chinese Art under the Mongols (cf. note 6), cat. no. 200.28 Arnold, Princely Gifts (cf. note 4), 134, fi g. 10–11, notes an image of the Madonna of Humility,

introduced to China during the early fourteenth century by the Franciscans, who brought illumi-nated books with them.

29 Th e Yuan court designated Zhou Boqi to be the offi cial recordkeeper.30 Th e Chinese phrase is jiudong 酒湩. Here dong 湩 means milk.31 Kangli Naonao 康里 (1295–1345), a descendant of the Central Asian Kangli tribe, was di-

rector of the Hanlin Academy and Emperor Shundi’s tutor. See Watt, Th e World of Khubilai Khan (cf. note 25), 227–228.

32 Zhou, Yuanshi xuan (cf. note 8).33 Th e painting, now at the National Palace Museum, Taipei, can be accessed at http://www.npm.

gov.tw/exh96/orientation/ch_b6_2.html (last access 10.06.2014); http://www.npm.gov.tw/mas-terpiece/fPreview.aspx?sNo=04000995 (last access 10.06.2014).

34 Huang Rensheng 黃仁生, “Yuandai keju wenxian sanzhong fafu 元代科舉文獻三種發覆” Wenxian 文獻 (2003); Han Geping 韓格平, “Leibian liju sanchang wenxuan gengji kekao gufu de kaoguan piyu 類編歷舉三場文選庚集科考古賦的考官批語” Wenxian jikan 文獻季刊, no. 1 (2012), 175–184.

35 See Wang Ting 王 , “Gongjun zuosong: Tianma shiwen yu Malinuoli chushi Yuanting”貢駿作誦: 天馬詩文與馬黎諾里出使元廷” in id., Jiaze tuanyun: Zhongwai guanxi shidi yanjiu 駕澤摶雲:中外關係史地研究 (Haikou: Nanfang Chubanshe, 2003), 92–110.

36 Its date can be deduced from its affi nity with the meiping vase with its dragon and fi ery pearl de-sign, dated 1346. Reproduced in Ning Zhichao 志超and Li Jie李佶, Wuhua tianbao: Yuandai ciqi shehui lishi wenhua chengyin tanxi物華天寶: 元代瓷器社会史文化成因探析 (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 2007), 250–251, pl. 142. It is similar to a blue-and-white porcelain jar in the Topkapi Saray Museum. See Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum (London: Sotheby’s Publications; New York: Harper and Row, 1986), pt. II, 407, pl. 586. See also Mikami Tsugio 三上次男, ed.,Sekai tōji zenshū世界陶磁全集, vol. 13, Ryō Kin Gen遼金元 (To-kyo: Shō gakkan, 1981), pl. 53.

37 Han, “Leibian liju” (cf. note 34), 182.38 Jie Xisi 揭斯 (1274–1344) likens the papal horse to Quanqi 權奇, a term used to designate the

heavenly steed in Han dynasty sources. Jie Xisi揭斯, Wen Angong wenji 文安公文集, juan 14; also in Zhang Xinglang 張星烺, Zhongxi jiaotong shiliao huibian 中西交通史料匯編 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2003), 359.

39 In Du Fu’s poem, the painter Cao Ba not only painted the Tang emperor’s horse, but also the “virtuous premier(s)” 良相and “fi erce general(s)” 猛將. Th ey appear as paired civilian and mili-tary offi cers in Zhou’s painting.

40 “Th ey wore (only) their civil robes and caps, with their ivory tokens of rank stuck in their girdles; and the offi cers of the guard huben 虎 put off their swords.” Sun Xidan孫希旦, comp., Liji jijie禮記集解 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1989), 1027, translation follows James Legg, trans., Li Chi Book of Rites (New York: University Books, 1967), vol. 2, 124.

41 Th e two fi gures are comparable to their counterparts in Ren Renfa’s 任仁發 (1255–1328) Nine Horses in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (William Rockhill Nelson Trust 72–78), and the Two Dignitaries Holding the Tether of a Magnifi cent White Stallion, manuscripts, ink and colour on paper, Library of the Topkapi Sarayi Museum, Istanbul, H. 2153–123b, H. 2154–33a, reproduced in Watt, Th e World of Kubilai Khan (cf. note 25), 23, fi gs. 35, 36.


104 EUGENE WANG

42 Wang Yi 王 (1321–1372), Wang Zhongwen ji王忠文集, juan 12. Zhang Xinglang, vol. 1, 366–367. Wang, “Gongjun zuosong” (cf. note 35), 98.

43 He was a native of Yongjia.44 Du Fu probably wrote the poem in 764. Xiao Difei 蕭滌非, Du Fu shi xuanzhu 杜甫詩選注

(Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 1996), 223–224.45 Korea sent in sixteen Japanese captives in 1286. Gong Yu 予 et al., eds., Zhongguo lidai gongpin

daguan中國歷代貢品大觀 (Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Chubanshe, 1992), 605.46 Gong, Zhongguo lidai gongpin (cf. note 45), 599–639.47 Song, Yuan shi (cf. note 16), 36.800–801.48 Lillian Tseng, Picturing Heaven in Early China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Asia Center Publica-

tions, 2011), 128–130.49 Song, Yuan shi (cf. note 16), 24.537.50 Th e dominance of horse images in traditional omen catalogues can be gauged by their frequent

occurrence in omen images. See Wu Hung, Th e Wu Liang Shrine: Th e Ideology of Early Chinese Pictorial Art (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 234–245.

51 Paul Lunde, “Th e Seas of Sindbad” Saudi Aramco World 56, no. 4 (July–August 2005), 20–29.52 Ash-Sharif al-Idrīsī’s World Map is contained in Pleasure of He who Longs to Cross the Horizons

(Nuzhat al-mushtāq fīikhtirāq al-āfāq, dated 1154), copy of 1553. It was drawn up for a geo-graphic work for King William II of Sicily. It is now kept in Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Manuscript Pococke 375, fols. 3b–4a. It is reproduced in Bjørn Axelsen and Michael Jones, “Are all Maps Mental Maps?” GeoJournal 14, no. 4 (1987), 448, fi g. 2. Hyunhee Park, Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds Cross-Cultural Exchanges in Pre-Modern Asia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 3, fi g. 0.1, 85, fi g. 2.4. Park dates al-Idrīsī’s World Map to 1153, while Axelsen and Jones affi x the date to 1161. Th e Chinese map, Comprehensive Map of the Four Seas (Sihai zongtu 四海捴圖), preserved or copied in Korea, is now kept at the British Library, MAPS.C.27.F.14.

53 Th e full title of the 1402 Korean map is Th e Map of Integrated Regions and Terrains and of Histor-ical Countries and Capitals (Honil gangli yeokdae gukdo jido). Park, Mapping the Chinese and Is-lamic Worlds (cf. note 52), 4, fi gs. 0.2, 104, 3.2. It draws on two fourteenth- century Chinese world maps: 1) Shengjiao guangpi tu聲教廣被圖produced by Li Zemin李澤民around 1330; 2) and the Hunhe jiangli tu 混一疆理圖 made by Qing Jun清浚around 1370.

54 See Isobe Akira 磯部彰, “Saiyū ki” shiryō no kenkyū 「西遊記」資料の研究 (Sendai-shi: Tō hoku Daigaku Shuppansha, 2007), 131–198.

Illustrations

Fig. 1: Zhou Lang, Tribute Horse from Europe, handscroll, ink on paper, 30.3 × 134 cm, Ming copy (?), 1342, Beijing, Palace Museum.

Fig. 2: Ren Xianzuo, Tribute Bearers, handscroll, ink and colours on silk, 32.2 × 188.7 cm, 1342, Beijing, Palace Museum.

Fig. 3: Ren Bowen, Tribute Bearers, handscroll, ink and colours on silk, 36.2 × 220.3 cm, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Avery Brundage Collection.

Fig. 4: Zhou Lang, Tribute Horse from Europe, detail.Fig. 5: Anon., Th e Planet Deity Mercury attended by a Monkey, hanging scroll mounted as panel, ink,

colours, and gold on silk, 121.4 × 55.9 cm, early 13th century, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 11.6121.

Fig. 6: Ren Bowen, Tribute Bearers, detail: Foreign fi gures.Fig 7: Young man, Nestorian Temple at Khocho, wall painting, 44.5 × 22.4 cm, 14C date: 602–654

CE, Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, inv. MIK III 6952, (photo: the author).Fig. 8: Jesus Christ as a Manichaean Prophet, hanging scroll, ink, colours, gold, and gold leaf on silk,

153.4 × 58.7 cm, 14th century, Kōshū, Yamanashi Prefecture, Tenmokusan Seiiun-ji.Fig. 9: Wang Zhenpeng, Mahāprajāpatī Nursing the Infant Buddha, handscroll, ink on silk, 31.9 ×

94.4 cm, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv.12.902.



Fig. 10: Zhou Lang, Tribute Horse from Europe, detail: Tribute horse and the two attendants.Fig. 11: Celestial steed, earthenware jar with painted decoration, Western Han dynasty (206 BC E – 9

CE), Zürich, Museum Rietberg, (photo: the author).Fig. 12: Porcelain jar painted with cobalt blue under transparent glaze, ca. late 1340s, collection un-

known (reproduced from Ning Zhichao and Li Jie, Wuhua tianbao Yuandai ciqi shehui lishi wenhua chengyin tanxi (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2007), pl. 136b).


Why Was There No Chinese Painting of Marco Polo? The Vexed Art of Itinerancy

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