Jesuits and the Qing court

The Jesuit missionaries did not come to China to propagate astronomical science but to convert the court and the empire to the Catholic faith. Their tools of persuasion were science, mathematics, astronomy and the arts. They were employed by the Ming and Qing courts for their scientific and astronomical knowledge, especially in determining important calendrical dates such as planting and harvesting.

During the early Qing, the Jesuits had submitted a series of treatises (in Chinese) to the throne that discussed the mathematical and cosmological foundations of astronomy in Europe. Their predictions of solar eclipses were generally more accurate them other 'foreign experts,' and the emperor Kangxi placed them in senior positions in the Board of Astronomy.

The sphere of influence of the Jesuits at the court also extended to painting, cartography, architecture, and landscape gardening. The most famous  painter in the Qing court was Guiseppe Castiglione (1688-1766). Castiglione arrived in China in 1715 and worked in the Qing court for some fifty years. He painted numerous portraits including One Hundred Horses in a Landscape (1728) and Qianlong Receiving Kazak Tribute Horses (ca. 1757).

In summarizing the contributions of Castiglione in the Qing court, Gauvin Bailey, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History of Art at the University of Aberdeen, writes: 'Castiglione was a consummate craftsman whose blend of East and West is one of the most successful ever attempted. In all, a brilliant synthesis, cleverly calculated to give the emperor enough of Western realism to delight him, but not enough to disconcert him.' (Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542-1773, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999: 108).  

Other Qing court painters included Giovanni Damasceno Salutti (1727-1781), Giuseppe Panzi (1734-1812), Jean-Denis Attiret (1702-1768), Louis de Poirot (1735-1814) and Ignaz Sichelbarth (1708-1780).

In a 'valedictory edict,' published after his death in 1722, Kangxi reiterated the immense contributions of the Jesuits in the court: 'Be kind to men afar and keep the able one's near.' The expression huai rou yuanren ('be kind to' or cherishing men from afar'), was one of the clichés in all documents of foreign relations in the Qing and alluded to similar expressions found in ancient Chinese texts such as the Book of Rites (Liji).  

Jesuits working for the Qing court

Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666), Director of the Board of Astronomy.

Johannes Schreck, arrived in Beijing in 1623. Officer of the Ming Imperial Observatory who worked on the new Ming Imperial Almanac until his death.

Ferdinard Verbiest (1623-1688), appointed as the Director of the Imperial Observatory in 1669.
Thomas Pereira (1645-1708), arrived in China in 1672. He worked as one of the official translators and interpreters of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689).

Joachim Bouvet, French-born Jesuit, worked for the Qing court from 1707-1717 to map the entire Qing empire. 
Guiseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), court portrait painter.

Jean-Francois Gerbillon taught Kangxi mathematics in the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxindian)
Michel Benoit and Castiglione were assigned to design a 'Chinese Versailles' for the Qianlong emperor with European-style palaces and fountains in what became the Yuanmingyuan (The Garden of Perfect Brightness)

Further Reading 

'Of the Mind and Eye: Jesuit Artists in the Forbidden City in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,' Pacific Rim Report, No. 27, April, 2003
(see:  http://www.usfca.edu/ricci/publications/pacrim_rep/prr27.pdf