Page 129 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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Fig. 4.24.a. and 4.24.b.
Two images of a leopard
and a horse (from
album with 14 images
of animals and mythical
creatures in cartouches), Finally, it is valid to mention three mid- watercolours; at least, this is the case for the
anonymous, nineteenth-century single albums owned by the Dutch collections. The other two, transferred in
watercolour on paper, Maritime Museum Rotterdam. ‘Valid’ because 2013 from the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, are,
1773-1776, of their use value as both commodities and admittedly, of a lesser artistic quality, but are still
29.9. x 29 cm (painting), artworks: One album features particularly high valuable because of their depiction of daily life.
34 x 32 cm (album), quality painterly renditions of the scenes One album, entitled Dschunken, Kostüme,
Museum Volkenkunde/ depicted and also has noteworthy maritime Strafvollstrekungen und einige andere Szenen
Nationaal Museum van (geographical) subject matter. The other two a.d. Leben Chinas, has 72 images of street
Wereldculturen, albums are remarkable because of their professions and peddlers, processions, rituals,
inv.no. RV-360-376. voluminous size. All three albums likely allowed boats, punishments/tortures, etc. (Figure 4.27.)
their first owners to ‘sail’ back to China in their The second (loose-leaf) album shows 36 sorts of
memories. The first mentioned is a well- local vessels, suggesting that they all once sailed
conserved album with twelve colourful in the watery environment of Canton.
depictions of: the quay at Canton; Whampoa Having outlined the images of the most
reach; Bocca Tigris; Macao’s Praya Grande; important sets and albums in the Dutch
Hong Kong; Honam; Golden Island (Nanjing); collections above, the next section deals with the
a city view of Old Shanghai; two river scenes variety of genres with different Chinese subject
near to Ningbo; and views of Chusan and Amoy matters found in the Netherlands.
(Xiamen). (Figure 4.26.) It is unusual to find
images of Chinese harbour cities in an album of Genres
It is possible to classify the paintings with
Fig. 4.25. Unused Chinese subject matter into certain groups by
section from the dividing them by genre. Images that belong to
Chinese bird-and- the same genre, states Rose, “share certain
flower wallpaper hung features. A particular genre will share a specific
in the Lower India set of meaningful objects and locations.” 54 The
Room at Penrhyn Dutch corpus can be regarded as a large dataset
Castle, near Bangor, of painted media with a limited variety of genres
in the early 1830s. with Chinese subject matters. I have devised ten
The unused sections genres to categorise the paintings. When making
have been kept in store up categories for a future digital database, to
at Penrhyn ever since code the paintings, Rose warns that these
and retain their categories “must have a number of
original, almost characteristics regardless of their putative status
shockingly bright as descriptive or interpretive.” 55 The genres I
colours. ©National have devised originate from content analysis and
Trust/Andrew Bush. technical and compositional examination of the
---
54 Rose 2007, 15.
55 Ibid., 65.