“The magnificent eight” European masters serving at the Manchu court during the heyday of the Qing Empire in the 18th century included French linguist and painter Louis-Antoine de Poirot (1735–1813), who lived and worked in Beijing from 1770 until his death.Together with his colleague Giuseppe Panzi, Poirot (He Qingtai) rightfully belongs to the prestigious second tier of court masters who personified the Sino-European style, which introduced China to European art. Having become the leader of the European “intellectual tributaries” after the death of Giuseppe Castiglione, Poirot carried out important assignments: He painted realistic portraits of the pacified Mongolian princes (1755) and created sketches for the “Battle Pieces of the Conquest of Jungaria and Kashgaria”, helped to decorate the European Xianglou palace, painted imperial hunting birds, horses, and created fictional subjects in the spirit of famous artists of the past. Poirot also translated the Bible into Chinese and Manchu and helped in diplomatic correspondence with Russia, translating from Latin into Manchu. An analysis of the artist’s creative legacy shows that, despite his more limited abilities than Castiglione and Attire, Poirot managed to carry the baton in the use of European painting techniques in combination with traditional Chinese ones, as was required by the court. It is especially significant that Poirot was the last European artist of the Qianlong Emperor and the first Jesuit to welcome the restoration of the order after disintegration. The paper provides analysis of Poirot’s most characteristic works in comparison with prototypes by Giuseppe Castiglione.
Dinara V. Dubrovskaya (2025) studied this question.