Qianlong Emperor

Born Hongli, the Qianlong Emperor was the grandson of the Kangxi Emperor and ruled the Qing empire for sixty years from 1735, when it was at the height of its wealth. In 1796 he stepped down so as not to reign longer than his grandfather, although as retired emperor he kept real power until his death in 1799. A passionate collector, poet and calligrapher, he gathered much of the imperial art collection, stamped his seals and poems onto famous old paintings and ordered the vast library compilation known as the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries. He also built on a grand scale: the garden that became the Summer Palace, the European-style palaces of the Yuanmingyuan designed with Jesuit artists, and Tibetan-style temples around Chengde. Like his grandfather he made six tours of the south, and many gardens and lakes there still keep stone tablets carved with his writing.