British Museum exhibition to address how art flourished during China's 'century of humiliation'

The British Museum will use a new exhibition to address the “violence” inflicted on China by Britain.

Chinese scholars and institutions have supported a new exhibition on the country’s history during the 19th-century, which is often seen as a “century of humiliation” at the hands of colonial powers.

The “violence” inflicted on China by western nations during this period will be explained in the “world first” show at the British Museum, which will feature objects which have never before been on public display.

Jessica Harrison-Hall, head of the China Section at the museum, has said that the exhibition aims to explain how Chinese arts and culture survived and flourished “in the face of unprecedented levels of violence in the long 19th-century”.

The period saw the ancient empire of China forced into a series of “unequal treaties” with Britain following the Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1856-60), which forced the Chinese to legalise the opium trade and concede favourable trading terms to Western powers.

Ms Harrison-Hall has said that the painful period for China is often overlooked, and the British Museum’s “Hidden Century” show covering the 19th-century is a world first for a major institution.

While the troubles of the period will be addressed in the show, the display will seek to convey the skill and innovation of artists in China despite colonial inference, civil war, and ultimately revolution.

Ms Harrison-Hall said: “It acknowledges the violence of the period, but it's really focussing on people’s resilience and their creativity

“And not letting all of the trauma of the 19th-century make us forget these stories and extraordinary people.”

To illustrate the creativity which endured the “century of humiliation”, the British Museum will display the robes of Empress Dowager Cixi, the ruler of China from 1861 to 1908, which will come on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The display will also feature a waterproof straw cape made for a street worker.  Priceless snuff bottles, and “photographic” portraits made from stitched cloth will also be used to show off the cultural life of China in the 19th-century.

Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, said the show backed by Citi bank would be “a world first” which “showcases the resilience of the many people who lived in Qing China”.