12 animal heads from Yuanmingyuan

In the twelfth year of the Qianlong reign (1747), Emperor Qianlong developed a strong interest in Western water art styles while viewing Western paintings. He asked Lang Shining to explain the interpretation and invited Jiang Youren to build a fountain. Originally, Lang Shining planned to build a sculpture of nude women with Western characteristics, but Emperor Qianlong believed it was contrary to traditional Chinese ethics and ordered it to be redesigned. After fully considering Chinese folk culture, Lang Shining decided to use the seated statues of the twelve zodiac animals instead of the commonly used human sculptures in Western fountain designs, resulting in the later bronze statues of the twelve zodiac animal heads.
Styling Features
The artistic style of combining Chinese and Western styles: crafted by Chinese court craftsmen and designed by artists from Europe such as Lang Shining, it combines strong traditional Chinese aesthetic taste with the characteristics of Western plastic arts. The carved outline of the monkey animal’s head and ears resembles human ears, but the ear hole is covered with a strand of monkey hair, adopting the freehand brushwork technique in traditional Chinese plastic arts; The ears of the cow’s head were sculpted using realistic techniques, and the ears were roughly presented in the shape of a semi-circular crescent moon.