Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Lang Shining
Milanese Jesuit lay brother who served three Qing emperors as a court painter for half a century, joining European shading and perspective to Chinese media
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Giuseppe Castiglione
Giuseppe Castiglione, known in Chinese as Lang Shining, was a Jesuit lay brother from Milan who reached Beijing in 1715 and entered imperial service as a painter, working for the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors for more than fifty years. He combined European perspective and shading with Chinese silk, paper and composition, excelling at horses, birds and flowers and portraits, and under Yongzheng he painted the long handscroll One Hundred Horses. The Qianlong emperor prized him above other court artists and had him paint famous horses, rare birds and exotic plants as well as portraits of the emperor and his consorts, and he took part in designing the European palaces of the Yuanming Garden. After the Qing conquest of Dzungaria and Xinjiang he joined Jean-Denis Attiret, Ignatius Sichelbarth and others in drawing the battle scenes that were sent to Paris to be engraved. He died in Beijing in 1766 and was posthumously given the rank of vice-minister.
Life and times
Dates 1688 CE–1766 CE