Liu Guandao, Khubilai Khan Hunting, 1280
Liu Guandao, Khubilai Khan Hunting, 1280 (Yüan dynasty). Hanging scroll, painting on silk. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
Detail, upper right corner of Liu Guandao, Khubilai Khan Hunting
Detail, upper right corner, Khubilai Khan Hunting

This scarlet-clad black horseman (situated in the right background of the full painting) appears as a trusted member of the royal inner circle of Khubilai Khan (1215-1294; r. 1260-1294), disposing us to regard him possibly as even an autonomous tribal chieftain. However, this rider’s face belies such status, revealing much more than what first meets the eye. Owing to the unmistakably visible Chinese character ya 丫—meaning “servant” or “subordinate” and a graph normally much more associated with females—tattooed on his left cheek, this regal-appearing black is exposed as ultimately being hardly more than a manservant. Consequently, neither his depicted participation in the great hunt nor his privileged proximity to Khubilai himself disguises the stubborn fact that he has become included within the orbit of the great Mongol khan only through enslavement as a bondsman or, at best, a hostage.

Contributed by Don J. Wyatt. This contribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Related Primary Sources

Related Secondary Sources

  • Wyatt, Don J. “The Image of the Black in Chinese Art.” In The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art, edited by David Bindman, Suzanne Preston Blier, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with Karen C. C. Dalton. Cambridge, MA; London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press/Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, 2017.

Themes

Captives, Elite Slaves, Images, Labor, Race