Page 101 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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on, another material, had to be painted first on
the surface of the glass. Only then could the
ground, or background, be painted over or
around it.” 167 Furthermore, Van Dongen, after
his research into the way the paint was applied,
observed that:

[P]artly for the sake of convenience, and partly
to avoid having successive layers of paint lying
too thickly on top of each other, the painters
tried to apply as many sections of the picture as
possible in the first layer(s) on the glass. This
means that the paintings on glass can also be
viewed as puzzles composed of smaller and
larger areas of colour, and lines, which must
accord with each other down to the smallest
Fig. 3.26. Rice harvest, technique. 163 detail in form and colour, and must fit into each
anonymous, oil on In comparison to ‘normal’ paintings, reverse other with the utmost precision. This care was
glass, 1785-1790, glass paintings are created in reverse order all the more necessary because, owing to the
52.5 x 81 cm, (mirror image). 164 The Chinese painter worked order of the painting, it was impossible to use
Museum Volkenkunde/ backwards, painting the image in reverse and overpainting for re-touching or correcting forms
Nationaal Museum van laying down the highlights and foreground once they had been applied to the glass. This
Wereldculturen, features first. Van Dongen explains this process was another factor increasing the difficulty of
inv.no. RV-360-1125. as follows: “The things which, seen in this painting technique, in comparison with
perspective, are closest to the viewer, or other forms of painting. 168
somewhere close, are painted in first. Where
necessary the background or ground is applied This observation means that to achieve
in a subsequent phase over the picture already precision, the painter must think very carefully
painted. For this reason the reverse side of a in advance, before applying his paint. Moreover,
glass painting shows much less detail than the any painter aiming to consistently deliver high
front side.” 165 Thus, the painter begins with the quality work, must have mastered the right skills
finishing touch and ends with the foundation. for an attractive colour palette and possess a
This means that to paint on mirrors, therefore, steady hand for self-assured lines and paint
a painter first outlines his subject and has to application.
remove the reflecting layer of quick-tin or Regular glass was favoured for this type of
quicksilver amalgam on the reverse side of the colour painting- and ink work, rather than
mirror that he does not want. Then he paints mirror glass, which was thicker and did not
with oil colour paint and works in a reverse show the colours as well and was more complex
order, in comparison with the ‘normal’ painting to work on. Furthermore, the reflective amalgam
method. layer of tin or mercury on the back of mirror
A closer examination of a group of Chinese glass first had to be scraped away, before the
reverse glass paintings in Winterthur Museum in transparent space could be painted on.
2007 revealed that the paintings are created with Reverse glass paintings were often made using
thin, translucent paint layers. 166 Highlights and models or templates. Three of the reverse glass
shadows are painted in the same plane. In the paintings of a set of 19 in the Museum
words of Van Dongen: “Particular details to be Volkenkunde, which can be dated 1785-1790,
represented, and which were in fact sited in, or have “small and fragile remnants” of small black

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163 Amiot & Cibot 1786, 163-166. Pierre-Martial Cibot (1727-1780) was a French Jesuit missionary at the Imperial
court in Peking and lived for twenty years in China. Many of his notes and observations on the history and literature
of the Chinese were published in the Mémoires concernant l'histoire, etc., at the time the chief source of
information in Europe regarding China and its people. De Guignes 1808, quoted in Jourdain & Jennyns 1950, 34.
164 Van Dongen 2001, 30-31.
165 Van Dongen 2001, http://volkenkunde.nl/sites/ default/files/attachements/sensitive_plates.pdf.
166 McGinn et al. 2010, 281. www.winterthur.org/pdfs/winterthur_primer_glass.pdf.
167 Van Dongen 2001, http://volkenkunde.nl/sites/ default/files/attachements/sensitive_plates.pdf.
168 Ibid.