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Ostentatious is an understatement. The sophisticated clockwork gadgets known in China as zimingzhong or ‘self-ringing bells’, and in Britain as ‘sing-songs’, are anything but subtle. Most visitors who encounter a top-quality zimingzhong for the first time will be immediately struck by two things: the impressive scale of many of these devices – with some standing a metre or so tall – and the detailed decoration gracing them. Zimingzhong can come in many guises, ranging from an elegant model pagoda to a pot of lotus flowers. Alternatives include serene countryside scenes and even a temple of Alexander the Great that bears more than a passing resemblance to a wedding cake. Others, though, closely mirror the devices that share the same practical purpose as zimingzhong: clocks. While familiar, European-style dials are prominently positioned on all of the zimingzhong, there could be much more to these curios than telling the time. Clockwork mechanisms also rang the bells that inspired their Chinese and British names. The finest examples would not merely chime to mark the passing of the hours, but instead incorporated portions of popular tunes, including an extract from Handel’s 1711 opera Rinaldo. As a final flourish, the most complex zimingzhong featured automata – mechanical beings who capered amid the luxuriant decoration.
In the 1700s, some of the finest clockmakers in Europe – such as James Cox, based in London – collaborated with the hundreds of individual craftsmen whose expertise was needed to produce a single ‘sing-song’. One reason why these devices attracted the very top talent of the day was that a lucrative market had opened up for them in China. The earliest zimingzhong had arrived there around a century earlier, with the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci using them as presents to ingratiate himself with the emperor in the early 1600s. Interest in these Western curiosities reached a new level under the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722), a Qing Dynasty ruler who came to the throne at the age of seven, after his father succumbed to smallpox. As a teenager, the Kangxi Emperor was renowned for his exacting work ethic, sometimes studying so hard that he vomited blood. His tutors included French missionaries, and the emperor developed a keen personal interest in European technology, resulting in him becoming an avid collector of zimingzhong.
The emperor’s fondness for these devices provided a valuable opportunity for European countries specialising in clockmaking – such as Britain, France, and Switzerland – to address a major trade imbalance with China at the time. While Western consumers had an insatiable appetite for porcelain, tea, and silk, China had previously proved rather less enthusiastic about European goods. As James Cox remarked, the zimingzhong offered a way ‘to retrieve to this country some part, at least, of those immense sums which the products and manufactures of Asia are incessantly draining from Europe’. The value of the zimingzhong was certainly considerable, with one produced by Cox in 1770 priced at £2,000, making it worth about £350,000 today. But not all of the zimingzhong would be sourced from Europe, as the Kangxi Emperor also wished to nurture the talents needed to make these devices rather closer to home. This ambition set the scene for an extraordinary meeting of skills, people, technology, and culture between Europe and China, as a fascinating exhibition at the Science Museum in London reveals (see ‘Further information’ box below).
For whom the bell tolls
The idea of using mechanical means to tell the time has a long pedigree in China. A document dating to 1088 details how an astronomical clock set within a tower could be powered by an ingenious waterwheel rigged to move at regular intervals. The arrival of European clocks from the 1600s also provided Chinese craftsmen with an opportunity to take them apart, learn about their mechanisms, and replicate them. ‘By the 1700s, there were certainly Chinese makers who had the skill to do that’, says Jane Desborough, keeper of science collections at the Science Museum. ‘Clocks were being made at Guangzhou, a bustling port where many of the zimingzhong being traded from Europe arrived, while the Kangxi Emperor opened imperial workshops, too, dedicated to manufacturing them at his home in the Forbidden City, at the heart of Beijing. This facility was known as the Zimingzhongchu or “office of self-ringing bells”. The emperor instructed the craftsmen there to make clocks, and also asked them to use different parts of other clocks to create even more beautiful examples of zimingzhong. One example of this approach takes the form of a crane, with the dial housed in a temple resting on its back. It is traditionally attributed to the maker James Cox, but recent research has shown that there is more to this story. While the mechanism that told the time and played the music was indeed produced by him, the delicate casing and decoration were made in China. One consequence of this is that it incorporates Chinese symbolism: the crane holds a lingzhi mushroom in its beak, for instance, which represents longevity and long-lasting marriage.’
Chinese craftsmen were renowned as well for their ability to manufacture imitation flowers. In 1749, the French missionary Jean-Denis Attiret observed that they ‘very much exceed the Europeans… in artificial flowers… so exactly like real flowers that one is apt to forget oneself and smell them.’ A fine example of this talent for manufacturing exquisite foliage can be seen in another zimingzhong that merges beauty, symbolism, and functionality. The device takes the form of a potted lotus plant, which rises from a gleaming pool of water where miniature cranes swim. When the mechanism is wound, the delicate petals of the lotus flowers unfurl to reveal seated figures, symbolising people emerging pure from a dirty world. This particular zimingzhong was produced in the workshops at Guangzhou in the early 1800s, using a combination of both Chinese and European mechanisms.
Meaning might lie concealed within rather less opulent decoration. One fine example occurs in a zimingzhong that comes across – when set alongside its peers – as a fairly austere example of a clock. ‘This is one of my favourite objects’, says Jane. ‘It was made in the Forbidden City workshops, which makes it particularly interesting. At first glance, the decoration around the dial looks like a floral pattern, but hidden within it are nine bats. The Chinese word for “bat” sounds very similar to the Chinese word for “good fortune”, which led to bats being seen as an auspicious symbol. That’s a departure from how bats are traditionally viewed in the West, which is a reminder that different animals can be perceived in different ways in different places. What we’ve really got here is a way to see how the meeting of cultures under way during this period played out through objects.’
Arcadia from the East
Zimingzhong adorned with tableaux that were quintessentially European found their way into the burgeoning collection in the Forbidden City, too. Tranquil scenes depicting an Arcadia of humans and nature living in harmony were popular subjects in media ranging from paintings to pottery in 1700s Britain. This has been taken as a reaction to an increasingly industrialised landscape, most memorably evoked by Blake’s reference to ‘dark Satanic mills’. Given that mechanisation was key to powering both the Industrial Revolution and the internal workings of the zimingzhong, it is perhaps ironic that the latter could also be decorated with nostalgic visions of an imagined, simpler past. One example features a shepherd leaning on a tree stump and playing a flute beside a cow-sized sheep. Another countryside scene acts as a stunning tour-de-force of the automata-maker’s art. It features a model watermill, surrounded by plants and animals. When the mechanism is engaged, the waterwheel turns, letting glass water glint in the light. The mill doors open to reveal a figure working a spinning wheel, while more than ten animals spring to life, making a range of realistic movements.
If these attempts to capture a perfect past are tinged with fiction, they are nothing compared to some of the hapless European attempts to incorporate Chinese imagery for the export market. Sometimes the results are simply jarring, such as the decision to have model Qing Dynasty figures processing beneath a model temple dedicated to Alexander the Great. In other cases, it inadvertently sheds light on misconceptions about the East that were current in 18th-century Europe. ‘Sometimes the craftsmen had never travelled to Asia’, Jane points out, ‘and the exhibition features a selection of zimingzhong that embody an attempt at a visual understanding of Chinese tastes. One example is a zimingzhong featuring a turbaned figure, which mixes the idea of Japan, China, and India to present a generalised European view of an imagined East.’
One area where European manufacturers did not try to cater to the Chinese market was in the design of dials. During this era, Europe and China measured time in very different ways. Rather than a system of hours of equal length, the Chinese divided the day up into double and quarter hours, while the night was broken into five watches known as geng. Because of this, diagrams were devised to show how the markings on Chinese timepieces such as sundials could be reconciled with the European time system. Despite the need to make such conversions, the zimingzhong proved extremely useful for the emperors. They were more accurate than the water clocks, and unlike sundials functioned regardless of the weather, allowing packed imperial schedules to be executed with greater accuracy. But the value of the zimingzhong did not just lie in ensuring manageable meeting lengths, as they also helped the emperors demonstrate their very right to rule.
Timing the heavens
‘The zimingzhong were very much a status symbol’, Jane says, ‘reflecting the emperor’s international reach. But they also had a wider meaning in Chinese society, which is best illustrated by a zimingzhong with a small model of an armillary sphere on top of it. This isn’t a functioning sphere – it’s too small – but it is symbolic of those instruments. They were important because they allowed the apparent movement of the stars and planets around the Earth to be charted. It was a key part of the Chinese belief system that the emperor acted as a bridge between Heaven and Earth. This meant that the emperors were expected to understand the heavens and be able to make predictions about eclipses. So having devices that allowed celestial events to be timed with greater accuracy reinforced the emperor’s position within China’s cultural belief system.’
As the Kangzi Emperor himself observed, ‘In the infinity of the universe, in the minuteness of daily life, there is nothing that does not dwell in numbers’. When it comes to understanding the decline of the zimingzhong trade, numbers were also significant, in this case their sheer cost. Just as the interest of an emperor had initially boosted their production, so too the reservations of another helped bring production to a close. By the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor (r. 1796-1820), the imperial household had accumulated hundreds of zimingzhong, and the emperor felt that acquiring more of these expensive devices was simply a waste of money. Their time was up.
Further information: The exhibition Zimingzhong 凝时聚珍: clockwork treasures from China’s Forbidden City runs until 2 June 2024 at the Science Museum, London. It showcases a selection of 23 zimingzhong, illustrating the beauty and ingenuity of these extraordinary devices. Tickets need to be booked, but the price is simply to pay what you can, with a minimum of £1 per person. For further details see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/zimingzhong
