Page 44 - Bonhams Chinese Scholar's Art March 2014

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8070
A set of eleven paintings depicting porcelain production
Jiaqing period (1796-1820)
Framed or framed and glazed, gouache on paper laid onto canvas.[11]
14 x 19in (35.5 x 48.2cm) each painting
$25,000 - 40,000

無名氏 造成瓷器圖 樹膠水彩畫紙本裱在畫布 鏡框與畫框 十一幅 嘉慶

Provenance:
John R. Peters Jr.
Thence by Descent
On long term loan to the Old Economy Museum, Ambridge, PA 1963-2010

Along with depictions of tea, silk or rice cultivation, series of gouache on paper paintings illustrating
porcelain production were popularly created for export to the West in the late 18th/early 19th centuries.
Showing various stages of the process, from excavating the clay, to throwing on the wheel, to painting
the vessels, to loading the kiln, to packing for shipment, numerous examples of these painting series were
produced in Guangdong for purchase by Western merchants, traders, and sea captains. The exhibition of
this specific set with the John R. Peters collection in early 19th century America and London is fitting.

Whereas the paintings offered to Americans and Europeans an accurate, step-by-step study of
how this desired commodity was produced, the exactitude is belied by the overly idyllic settings.
Created for the West, the opaque gouaches and painted skies adapt the aesthetic of a European
oil painting, as opposed to a traditional Chinese landscape genre scene. Often these paintings were
created on British, rather than Chinese paper.

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