Four Afghan Steeds

Four Afghan Steeds (Chinese: 爱乌罕四骏图) is a series of four portraits of Afghan horses donated to the Qianlong Emperor of China in 1763 by Emir Ahmad Shah of Afghanistan, and painted on a silk roll by the Milanese Jesuit missionary Giuseppe Castiglione. These paintings, commissioned shortly before Castiglione's death, present detailed information about each of the horses, in four languages: Uyghur, Chinese, Manchurian and Mongolian. It is considered one of Castiglione's most famous works[1] and are now kept at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan (40.7 x 297.1 cm[2]) along with other art featuring horses by Castiglione.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Diplo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "NPM New Media Art Exhibition_Introduction". 3 November 2018.
  3. ^ Jos Gommans (2017). Routledge (ed.). The Indian Frontier, Horse and Warband in the Making of Empires. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-36356-3..