Page 128 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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Fig. 4.22. Woman
depiction of a broad range of subjects, including
playing a flute with her
23 of the consecutive steps in the silk production
maid (from album with
process, make this latter red leather-covered 12 images), anonymous,
album outstanding. 49 (Figure 4.23.a. to 4.23.d.)
watercolour on pith
Secondly, I would like to highlight a unique
paper, glued on
and rare album that belongs to the Royer
European paper, 19th
Collection in Museum Volkenkunde. This late
century, 34 x 22 cm,
eighteenth century album, with fourteen
Tropenmuseum/Natio
watercolours, on paper, of animals and mythical
naal Museum van
creatures in cartouches, encircled by floral
Wereldculturen, inv.no.
scrolls and set in a black background, differs TM-3728-483.
from the previously mentioned Royer albums. 50
(Figures 4.24.a. and 4.24.b.) As Van Campen
posits in his article on Royer’s Chinese albums
and paintings in Aziatische Kunst, these latter
kinds of images with cartouches were primarily
meant to be decorative and were not designed to Figs. 4.23.a. to 4.23.d.
be a source of information about Chinese daily Four images of the silk
life, as many of the other Royer albums were. 51 production process
Their artistic value and their curiosity lies mainly (from set of 23 images
in the different EurAsian ‘layers’ integrated in in album with 41
these images. 52 Historical Chinese and European images of various
artistic print and book illustration practices or subject matter),
familiarity with the Chinese wallpaper painting anonymous,
tradition probably inspired their painters. 53 An watercolour on pith
to make them appropriate for display and unused piece of Chinese wallpaper from Penrhyn paper, 19th century,
viewing sessions. Castle, Gwynedd, Wales, presented at the 25 x 24 cm,
conference Chinese wallpaper: Trade, techniques Tropenmuseum/
- Single albums and taste on 7 and 8 April 2016 in London, Nationaal Museum van
In addition to the most important collections makes this evidently clear. This remnant piece of Wereldculturen,
with ‘sets of albums’ in the Dutch collections, as wallpaper showed a remarkable similarity to inv.nos. TM-3728-490
described above, a number of single albums some of the paintings in this album. (Figure 4.25.) to 3728-513.
must be mentioned. They are valuable because
of the artistic execution of the images, the fact
that they carry a studio mark of a famous
Chinese export master painter, their subject
matter, the way they are bound, or their social
history. I will examine some examples here.
Firstly, the Tropenmuseum owns some treasures
in this regard: a valuable Sunqua-signed album
with masterly painted watercolours on pith
paper of Chinese local vessels (Figure 4.21.); an
album with twelve watercolours on pith paper,
glued on European paper, with women playing
various musical instruments (Figure 4.22.); and
one bound album featuring 41 very well-
executed watercolours on pith paper. The use of
a rich colour palette, the composition and the

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49 Inv.nos. Tropenmuseum respectively: A-7780e,
3728-483, 3728-484 (album) with images of silk making,
inv.nos.3728-490 to 513.
50 Inv.no. 360-376.
51 Van Campen 2010, 46.
52 Grasskamp 2015, 363-399.
53 Van Campen 2010, 46. Wappenschmidt 1989, 28-29.
Clunas 1984, 74.