Page 136 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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from China. The painting that adorns the cover
especially after 1815. 72 18-10-2016 15:44 Pagina 7
During his stay in Canton in the 1870s, the of this dissertation, in the collection of the
Scottish photographer Thomson observed, “the Rotterdam Maritime Museum since 2006, serves
best works these painters do are pictures of as a good example. The Dutch captain Van den
native and foreign ships, which are wonderfully Kerckhoff (1832-1897) became the first owner
drawn.” 73 In the nineteenth century, these sorts of this ship portrait in the 1860s, while sailing to
of paintings were frequently produced via the ‘the East’ at the helm of the barque Wilhelmina.
well-known modular- and mass production. The item was cherished and handed down
Many ships portraits feature decorative through several generations. As an artwork, its
backdrops, such as Lintin Island – where, in the value was multifaceted, culminating in this
nineteenth century, vessels with names like image being used as a thank-you note following 135
‘scrambling dragons’ or ‘fast crabs’ transported the funeral of one of Van den Kerckhoff’s
vast quantities of opium – or the anchorage at descendants. The symbolic value of this painting,
Whampoa, or the harbour of Hong Kong. a real identity-reinforcer, with this image of the
(Figure 4.39.) ship forever connected with the descendant who
The ships portraits in the Dutch collections passed away, transcends the meaning of any
are all dated between 1836 and 1866. Although written words about the artwork. (See Chapter
it is known that in the Chinese export painting 5.3. for its concomitant story.)
practice paintings are often copied, we may
assume that inscriptions like De Planter van Scenes of daily life (professions, peddlers and
Amsterdam leggende ter Reede van Whampoa in street performers, and local vessels)
China den 13 november 1836 (Figure 2.2.) or In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe,
Henriette Kapt. J. Van Loenen 1858 are reliable scenes of ordinary people in their everyday life
production date markers. That the screw- were a popular genre. Indeed, this genre – which
propeller steam ship, third class, bobbed around includes, for example, sixty etchings of The
in Hong Kong harbour in 1863 is apparent from itinerant street trades of the city of Venice,
the inscription Zr.Ms. schroefstoomschip Vice published in 1785, and William Marshall Craig’s
Admiraal Koopman ter reede Hongkong 8 juli Cries of London prints, published in 1804 and
1863. This imposing souvenir piece (Figure 4.40) featuring itinerant traders and street hawkers –
was gifted to the Dutch Navy Museum in Den was familiar to a Western middle class, a
Helder in the period 1962-1978. Other date culturally-educated audience, and were perceived
indicators could very well be documentary as ‘picturesque’. 74 In addition, a series with 66
written records, fluttering ships flags and the drawings, known as Straatwerken, by the
type of ship (East Indiaman, barque, steam Golden Age artist from Delft, Leonard Bramer
corvette, paddle steamer, three-mast clipper or (1596-1674), provide vivid images of
screw-propeller steam ship). seventeenth-century professions and street trades
In addition to written records, from the in the daily life of a Dutch city. We can assume
moment of production until today, paintings that a private individual commissioned this
with this maritime subject matter had their own series of drawings, however, it is no longer
agency and, in turn, their depictions produced possible to discover the exact circumstances. 75
social effects on audiences every time they were In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in
and (still) are looked at. With their the port cities of South China, images with
accompanying meaningful and multilayered scenes of daily working-class life were
narratives, they often surpass the value conveyed appreciated by foreign visitors particularly for
by textual records. Most of them operate as far their illustrative information about the weal and
more valuable items than just some artworks woe of the ‘ordinary Chinese’. On the one hand,

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72 Crossman 1991, 117.
73 Thomson 1873, vol 1.
74 Burke 2001, 110. See more on: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-cries-of-
london#sthash.KP3cC8ro.dpuf.
75 The drawings belong to the Special Collections of Leiden University (http://www.bibliotheek.leidenuniv.nl/
bijzondere-collecties/bijzondere-collecties/bramer.html). For more information on Leonard Bramer, see the
research by Donna Barnes. She has previously organised four seventeenth-century Dutch art exhibitions at the
Hofstra University Museum, including People at Work (1988); Street Scenes: Leonard Bramer’s Drawings of Dutch
Daily Life (1991), The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker: Jan Luyken’s Mirrors of Dutch Daily Life (1995), and
Playing, Learning, Working in Amsterdam’s Golden Age: Jan Luyken’s Mirrors of Daily Life (2004).