Page 100 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

64 pag:Opmaak 1
18-10-2016 15:53 Pagina 35
roos boek 065-128 d

Watercolours could be purchased either as loose
leaves, or as sets of twelves leaves bound in an
album. Although singular ones exist, most
watercolours are meticulously executed with
templates as part of a mass production line. A
singular exemplar in the Dutch collections is the
former Museum Nusantara image (Figure 3.24.)
depicting an acrobatic performance troupe. 158
This painting is lively and full of action. We can
assume that the ‘movement’ in the presented
scene emerged from the mind of the painter, who
used his drawing pencil to lightly sketch the way
the upper acrobat will travel when he is tossed
to the ground.
The cardboard covers of the albums were –
whether or not they featured a studio seal on the
inside – sometimes covered with embroidered
silk or with woven textile with geometric
patterns, or sometimes with paper in bright
colours. 159 This is also true of most of the
albums in the Dutch collections. (Figures 3.25.a
to 3.25.e.)

Reverse glass paintings
The technique of reverse glass painting, as
researched and described in Sensitive Plates by
Paul van Dongen, former curator China at the
Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden, and in
‘Chinese Glass Paintings in Bangkok
Monasteries’ by Jessica Lee Patterson, has been
in Europe for centuries. 160 It is generally
believed that the technique went from Europe to
Fig. 3.25. Covers of b. Album with 12 various professions,
China, where already in the 1730s reverse glass
albums with Chinese images of men, street anonymous, 1773-
paintings were being produced in Canton. The
export watercolours traders and 1776, 27 x 28.5 cm,
transport of six reverse glass paintings (‘6 Glass
on pith paper. occupations, Museum
Pictures’) from Canton to England in 1739 is
Left: anonymous, c. 1850, Volkenkunde/
noted in the MS account book of captain Bootle a. Album with 12 29.9 x 19.4 cm, Nationaal Museum
of the English East India Company (EIC). 161 The
images of women Zeeuws Museum van Wereldculturen,
EIC day registers also provide information about
making music and Middelburg, Zeeuws inv.no. RV-360-377.
this early practice: “Purchased from Quouqua in
doing homecrafts, Genootschap d. Album with 7
1738: 18 painted glass with lacquer’d frames anonymous, 1830- (Zealandish Society), images of Chinese
and 6 painted glass with rosewood frames.” 162
1865, 25.5 x 21.5 cm, inv.no. G3610. ships, Sunqua, 1830-
This suggests that paintings on this medium
Tropenmuseum/ Right: 1865,
were amongst the earliest examples of Chinese
Nationaal Museum c. Album with 32 23.5 x 33 cm,
export art. We know via their writings that
van Wereldculturen, images of Chinese Tropenmuseum/
many contemporary eywitnesses were intrigued
inv.no. TM-A-7780f. people practicing Nationaal Museum
by the procedure of this special painting
van Wereldculturen,
inv.no. TM-A-7780e.
---
e. Album with 12
159 Cobb 1956, 243.
images of Chinese
160 Van Dongen 2001. Patterson 2016. The technique of painting on glass has existed in some parts of Europe
harbour cities,
(mainly South-East) and Russia since the Middle Ages. The earliest surviving examples even date from the Roman
anonymous, c. 1850,
Empire (Patterson 2016, 155).
25.7 x 35.2 cm,
161 Jourdain & Jenyns 1950, 64. Conner 1998, 420, MS account book G/12/44, India Office Library and Records, ff.
Maritime Museum
153-156 (British Library, London).
Rotterdam, inv.no.
162 Email Paul A. Van Dyke (Sun Yat-sen University Guangzhou), 15 May 2008, with short list of Cantonese artists,
P1711.
a number of which features in the day registers of the Dutch East India Company of 1762-1763. Van Dyke and
Cynthia Vialle (Leiden University) have translated these registers into English and they were published in 2008.