China’s last imperial dynasty was the Qing dynasty. Founded in 1644 when the Manchus from northeast China overthrew the Ming dynasty, it lasted until the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912. Two Manchu monarchs dominated this period: the Kangxi Emperor (ruling 1662-1722) and his grandson, the Qianlong Emperor (ruling 1736-1795). Their reigns set the course for the Qing dynasty, the foundation inherited by modern China.

Each of the two emperors undertook multiple “tours of inspection” to all corners of the realm—and each emperor once engaged a leading artist to accompany and record one of these tours. The result was two sets of scrolls—12 for each documented tour. We can now use these scrolls to explore and compare depictions of China not only from two different reigns, 60 years apart, but also through different styles of depicting space—the first using the Chinese and the second using a European approach.

This module focuses on interactive digital versions of four of these inspection tour scrolls—two from each collection—allowing users to zoom and pan through these primary documents.