• National Palace Museum Painting Collection 故宮授權複製畫

Giuseppe Castiglione, called Lang Shih-ning in Chinese, was a native of Milan, Italy. When he became a Jesuit at the age of nineteen, he already excelled at painting and architecture. At twenty-seven, he journeyed to China as a missionary and was summoned to the Imperial Court, where he served under the K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Ch’ien-lung emperors. He is known for his paintings of dogs and horses. This “piebald” is a tribute horse which was presented to the Imperial Court by Koruin Giynn Wang of Nomun Eehetu (in Sinkiang) and painted by Castiglione in 1743. The horse is almost life-size in scale, indicating that Castiglione probably painted it from life.