Xie Sui

Almost nothing is recorded about Xie Sui's life. He served as a painter at the court of the Qianlong Emperor, who ruled China from 1736 to 1796, and he specialised in figures. His name survives through one large project.

In 1751 the emperor ordered an illustrated survey of the peoples who sent tribute to the Qing court or lived along the edges of the empire, from Korea and the countries of Europe to the hill peoples of the southwest. Each people appears as a man and a woman in their typical dress, beside a text in Manchu and Chinese on their history, customs, local products and relations with the court. Provincial officials supplied the material, and the survey kept growing as new groups came under Qing rule. Xie Sui's painted version, in four long handscrolls, is in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and in 2022 its texts were published in a full English translation.