Page 126 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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Fig. 4.17. Mandarin,
anonymous,
watercolour on pith
paper, 1851-1856,
27 x 18.5 cm,
SAB-City Archives and
Athenaeum Library
Deventer,
inv.no. DvT V.2.KL(7).

Fig. 4.18. Mandarin,
Youqua, watercolour
on pith paper,
1850-1860, 33 x 25.5 cm,
Wereldmuseum
Rotterdam,
inv.no. 19167.3.

Kingdoms, mythological figures, Taoist deities, ‘real’ Chinese objects. 43 From well-kept records
arts and crafts practitioners, street performers, and descriptions, we know that Royer was
beggars and sick people, bandit-like characters, primarily interested in images that reveal
such as those from the book Water Margin by something about life in China. 44 For him, the
Chen Hongshou (1598-1652), and famous male artistic painterly beauty of the paintings was
theatre personages from the Tang, Song and secondary. Questions regarding precisely which
Ming dynasties. As Van Campen has previously Chinese images the album leaves are based on,
noted, the, in total, 608 illustrations in these or which descriptive texts form their antecedents
album sets do not form a cohesive series in terms are worth future research. Made for Trade
of subject matter, but they do, however, focuses on the valuation aspects of the corpus
correspond in terms of form, colour use and Chinese export painting in Dutch collections.
style. 42 (Figures 4.15. and 4.16.) It seems clear Therefore, I do not discuss the question about
to me that these albums, full of characters and written or visual sources that may have formed
professions, are not devised or conceived from the basis of these images.
Western painting conventions, but rather that Secondly, the Deventer SAB-City Archives and
this genre originates from the Chinese visual Athenaeum Library collection consists of a
tradition (see below: Genres – Scenes of daily life strikingly beautiful collection of mid-nineteenth
– Professions, peddlers and street performers). In albums with watercolours on pith paper,
the case of the Royer albums, this idea is depicting images of flora and fauna (butterflies,
supported by our knowledge of who Royer the flowers and insects), Chinese dignitaries and
person was, namely someone who wanted to their servants, and men and women in colourful
find out everything about China by collecting costumes with accessories. (Figure 4.17.) The