China TV drama The Story of Yanxi Palace is just the latest example of Emperor Qianlong’s approach to art being called into question. He couldn’t resist writing in the margins of paintings.

A fictionalised account of the 18th-century Emperor Qianlong’s real-life harem of concubines, the 70-episode series charts the rise and fall of a number of women in the Qing court as they vie ...

Emperor Qianlong was unlike most emperors in Chinese history, and in particular his father Emperor Yong Zheng, who had to wait for 44 years before ascending to the throne, with bitter political ...

For the concubines live only to please his master, the emperor, an absolute ruler in whose name the guilty and innocent alike are shown being jailed, executed or exiled without hope of appeal.

From what is today Beijing, the Qianlong emperor commanded the largest, richest empire on earth, so he “spared no expense” while constructing a private complex of 27 buildings, pavilions, and ...

Portrait of Qianlong Emperor on silk by Giuseppe Castiglione, 1736. Credit: The Palace Museum, Beijing The fascination with Qianlong is helped by the plethora of images, portraits and artefacts ...