Eight Horses， a Qing Dynasty（1644.1911） hanging scroll by Giuseppe Castiglione， ink and color on silk， 139.3cm×80.2cm， in the collection of the Palace Museum， Taipei.
Giuseppe Castiglione（1688.1766）， an Italian born in Milan， had a Chinese name of Lang Shining. In 1715， the fifty-fourth year of the Kangxi reign， he came to China and entered imperial art academy as a painter. He once participated in the design of a Western-style building in Yuanmingyuan， the old Summer Palace. He conducted painting works in China for over 50 years， and was representative of imperial-court painting during the reigns of Yongzheng and Qianlong. He combined painting techniques of both Chinese and Western painting， producing a far-reaching impact on the imperial-court painting in the Qing Dynasty. He was proficient at drawing characters， portraits， animals， birds， flowers， landscapes， and horses in particular. He had many famous works， such as A Gathering of Auspicious Objects， Plum， Eagle and Glossy Ganoderma， One Hundred Horses， Portraits of Hong Li and His Concubines and Putting down Riots in Western City. Eight Horses is one of his representative works. It was once collected in the palace of the Qing Dynasty and seal imprints of successive Qing emperors can be seen in it.
