The Secretariat System: Collectivism of Han Chinese Scholar-Artists under Manchu Rule in the Nineteenth Century

Established by the Manchus from Northeast Asia, the Qing Dynasty ruled China for over two centuries. How did Han Chinese scholar-artists express their anti-Manchu sentiments? In what collaborative ways did they perpetuated and revived their cultural heritage? This paper explores the rise of elite collectivism in the nineteenth century, focusing on the institution known as mufu (secretariat). It was an informal system for provincial scholar-officials to hire art specialists from the local society. At the initiative of each mufu host, a heterogeneous collection of artists spanning various geographical origins and specialties gathered together in the spirit of mutual support and recognition. My analysis centers on their collaborative efforts of building public art collections at historic-tourist sites. By tracing how mufu members “curated” the preservation and exhibition of their contributed ancient artifacts, I argue these collections served as museum-like platforms, granting artists from all walks of life access to resources that were challenging to acquire beyond their individual social circles. Antiquarianism thus flourished across diverse art fields, contesting the cultural hegemony of the Manchu imperial authorities. Despite China’s descent into semi-colonial status under Western imperialism following the Opium Wars, the mufu system eventually evolved into modern-day art societies in treaty ports like Shanghai. In response to the destruction of their public collections, these artists collaboratively combined traditional rubbing-making with ink painting techniques to reproduce the artifacts as two-dimensional images, creating a mixed-media collage named “ancient erudition painting” that transformed the classical past into popular art appealing to modern urban taste.