The Romantic Collector in China: Nathan Dunn's Ten Thousand Chinese Things

Abstract

In 1795, A.E. van Braam Houckgeest, a former Dutch consul in the American South, journeyed from Canton to Peking as a part of a European Embassy to the Qing Court (Loehr 181). Conveyed in a sedan chair shouldered by coolies, Houckgeest had plenty of time to sketch the Chinese countryside. He also employed two Chinese artists to make a visual record of all aspects of China; they improved upon their employer's sketches, copied any existing pictures he saw and liked, and painted any view he pointed to. In all, the two artists produced between 1,800 to 2,000 pictures (Carpenter 340-44). Returning to the United States in 1796, Houckgeest purchased a farm 17 miles from Philadelphia where he commenced building his Retreat, a mansion that would house his collection of pictures, his assorted curios, and his five Chinese servants. Houckgeest became an instant celebrity. Wherever he went, he took his carriage with his four Chinese coachmen and Chinese footman because he relished passing the crowds who would stop to stare at the curious sight (Carpenter 338-40). He was also quite fond of entertaining friends and would recount tales from his travels in China as they inspected his things (Loehr 188). Unfortunately, the first Chinese exhibit in America was doomed to be short-lived as the owner's life soon began to unravel. His wife divorced him, and he fell into such financial turmoil that, in 1797, his friends had to rescue him from debtor's prison. Houckgeest moved to London where he sold his Chinese collection (Carpenter 340; Loehr 189). It would be more than forty years before the United States would see another major Chinese collection. The influence of the second, assembled by the China trader Nathan Dunn (figure 1), would far exceed that of the first for a handful of reasons. Unlike Houckgeest, Nathan Dunn returned from China with a fortune and therefore had no financial troubles about which to worry. But more importantly, the times themselves had changed, and with them changed the concerns of both the proprietor of such an exhibit and the exhibit's audience. Dunn assembled his collection in a transitional period between the Enlightenment and the Romantic Age, a period characterized by Alexander von Humboldt, George Catlin, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Frederick Church, and Thomas Cole (New Lands, New Men 52-59, 165). These explorers, natural historians, ethnographers, writers, poets, and painters all composed epic works suffused with the belief that humankind could catalogue the universe-or at least some corner of it. In this same spirit, Nathan Dunn's exhibit, Ten Thousand Chinese Things, did not cover only works of art; it encompassed trade articles, household items, historical artifacts, costumes, agricultural tools, and specimens of zoological, botanical, and mineralogical interest. Also at this time, the general public was experiencing a vogue for travel literature, for histories of other nations, and for narratives of expeditions. Like these, the Chinese Museum shed light on a part of the globe previously enshrouded in a mist of misinformation. However, it created a sensation both in Philadelphia and in London because it produced an effect that no book or magazine could match: it actually seemed to transport visitors to China and return them home that same afternoon, in time for tea. The Vision of Cathay Most Americans, particularly those in or near a port city, probably knew more about dreamy Cathay than actual China. Hugh Honour, in his study on Europe's fascination with Chinoiserie, describes Cathay as an idealized conception that substituted for real knowledge on the Chinese Empire. He lists the prevalent images of Cathay that drifted about in the Western mind in the late 18th and early l9th century: Of this mysterious and charming land, poets are the only historians and porcelain painters the most reliable topographers. They alone can give an adequate impression of the beauty of the landscape with its craggy snow-capped mountain ranges,. …