Page 116 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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different media; companion pieces; sets of oil value). In the second place are genres such as
paintings or gouaches and albums with Chinese flora and fauna and the different stages
watercolours; images rendered in oil on canvas, in the production processes of tea, silk and
paper, tree leaf, bone or copper or as reverse porcelain (hinting at scientific and historic
glass paintings; and watercolours or gouaches on value). The value of other genres present in the
regular Chinese or European paper or on Dutch collections, which I have studied, is to
Chinese pith paper. An overview of the locations be found in, respectively, their artistic quality
of the collections studied for this research, (landscapes and portraits), in the desire to grasp
together with their technical and formal aspects, the unknown, their ‘exotic’ Chinese stately and
is provided in Figure 4.1. and Appendix 1. When noble character (imperial court, interior and
analysing the corpus, the relatively limited garden scenes), or an emphasis on the 115
number of oils, reverse glass, or enamel inequalities between West and East (the more
paintings is striking. Only people who could morbid images of judicial punishments, torture
afford them could purchase these expensive methods and beheadings). By contrast, analysis
8
paintings. Watercolours on pith paper, of genres such as religious practices, medical
however, tended to be mass-produced, either as portraits, Chinese divinities, rituals and festivals,
loose sheets, sometimes in small, glass-fronted opium practices, shop- and workshop interiors,
boxes, or in beautifully bound silk-covered and erotic scenes, is largely ignored, because, in
albums, which were much more affordable for contrast to English and American collections,
a larger group of people. 9 these subjects hardly feature in the Dutch public
Additionally, because I am using the Dutch collections. 11
collections as research material, I am aware that I have immersed myself in the corpus for a
a different picture emerges regarding the number of years, and I have had access to,
numbers and subject matter of collections in studied, and in some cases photographed the
other European countries that traded with sets, albums and singulars in the Dutch
China. A number of rare and early sets, albums, collections. In Made for Trade, I relate this
identical pairs and singulars that feature in the hands-on work with the objects to various
Dutch collections are, for the most part, descriptive sources, such as eyewitness accounts
significant enough to submit to a content with vivid details, and documentary or scholarly
analysis. 10 In doing so, it is obvious that the documents that convey information on the
Dutch interest was primarily in subjects with a different genres and their inherent use value,
strong iconic value, related to the time spent in as well as possible differences and similarities in
China or, more broadly, ‘the East’, such as the understanding of the present subject matter.
harbour views and ship portraits Thus, I have discovered that there are
(commodity/export and artistic value). Themes ambiguities, as a result of which there is a
that conveyed an image of the life and activities multiplicity of meanings. Therefore, I agree with
of the Chinese people were also very popular, Burke, when he writes, “that the meaning of
including images with subjects such as images depends on their ‘social context’.” 12
professions, peddlers, street performers, local Surely, in the case of Chinese export painting it
vessels, figurine paintings of dignitaries and their is important to include social-cultural aspects
servants, and of men and women in colourful regarding the commissioning of these paintings
costumes with accessories (material and artistic in China, as well as the reception of them back

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8 About 140 oil paintings, including those on canvas and on paper; 39 reverse-glass paintings, and 14 enamels.
9 About 3,800 watercolours, including 2,960 belonging to the Royer Collection; and 60 gouaches.
10 Rose 2007, 69-73.
11 During the research period for this thesis, I visited relevant collections abroad, including: various museums in
Hong Kong; the Peabody Essex Museum and Philadelphia Maritime Museum (US); the major art museums in the
region of the Pearl river delta; and a number of British collections, amongst others, those of the National Maritime
Museum Greenwich, the V&A, the British Library and the British Museum.
Museum Volkenkunde has three paintings with the theme of Chinese rituals and festivals: All Souls, inv.no. 360-
1124; Dragonboat race, inv.no. 360-1114 and Ploughing emperor, inv.no. 360-1113. Furthermore, there is a set of
watercolour paintings in their collection with depictions of Chinese gods, inv.nrs. 360-7517a to 7517v. The same
museum also features a set of paintings with nine images relating to the sale and smoking of opium, inv.nr. 2124-1
and 21241a to 21241h. In addition, I am familiar with the private Bertholet Collection in Amsterdam, which comprises
paintings with an erotic theme.
12 Burke 2001, 178.