Page 143 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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missionary to China, provides a detailed descrip- about the fact that Chinese export painters were
tion of the appearance of the first wife of a apparently prepared to misrepresent aspects of
Cantonese salt merchant, on a visit to their their own culture. 97 “These paintings reflected
home: less real life than Western preconceptions about
China – preconceptions which were easily
[t]he lady of the house, or ‘number one wife’ did impressed upon the Chinese artist, who was
not make her appearance, until a little time had willing to pander to his ignorant foreign patron,
elapsed. At length she entered the room, and the even at the expense of misrepresenting his own
others gave place, while she received her visitors country.” 98 According to Clunas, “the early
and refused to sit herself until every one of her views of Canton street traders attempt a degree
142 guests was seated. She was a beautiful young of realistic observation, while views of grandees
creature, not over twenty-one years of age. Here do not.” 99 We know that this realism was not
hair was arranged in their usual tasteful manner, the case. Yet, this unrealistic image was sent into
and adorned with flowers, pearls, and other the world ‘without problem’ in order not to
ornaments. She was attired in a simple dress of disillusion Western buyers, making these kinds
grass-cloth, tight about the throat, with large of illusionistic images what Tillotson calls
sleeves, exposing a beautiful hand, and wrist full ‘articles of knowledge’. 100 Indeed, Western
of bracelets. Underneath her grass-cloth tunic, knowledge about China was principally shaped
she wore an embroidered skirt that nearly by these images.
concealed her little feet. [...] The Chinese lady in Some decades later, the colourful Chinese
the better class is not without attractions; her costume and elegant appearances of Chinese
toilet is often arranged with taste and beauty; women still gave food for records in travelogues
though her decorations are often profuse and and diaries of Westerners. In De Gids of 1896,
gaudy. Her dress is well adapted to the season. the Dutch writer and interpreter of Chinese,
In the heat of the summer her attire is simply Henri Borel (1869-1933), published an account
grass-cloth; as the weather becomes cool, this is of a trip he took in 1894 with the river
exchanged for silk and other richly embroidered steamship Hankow from Hong Kong to Canton.
material. 96 His record of his visit to one of the flower boats
on the Canton river shows how he compared the
This quote indicates that, in Bridgman’s eyes, ‘living’ reality with the decorations on Chinese
the attire of the Chinese merchant wife was porcelain and images on pith paper:
strikingly elegant, tasteful and, especially
different (“beautiful young creature”, “usual I looked at the strange, incredible creatures
tasteful manner”, “the Chinese lady in the better around the table. They were all so small and
class is not without attractions”, and so on). fragile in the sparkling pink and sky-blue robes
Typically, the figures in these paintings usually embroidered with delicate flowers, birds, pink
‘floated’ against a blank background, lacking seamed with blue, and red with gold, and pale
any context of the world that they belonged to. green with bright yellow, everything brilliant and
The question is whether this was just a Western shimmering in the intense light, wide short robes
imagination. Both Clunas and Tillotson write over wide trousers, that every now and then give

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96 Bridgman 1853, 23-24 and 26-29.
97 Tillotson 1987, 65. Clunas 1984, 68.
98 Tillotson 1987, 65.
99 Clunas 1984, 68.
100 Tillotson 1987, 65.
101 Borel 1896, 191-192, 194. “Ik keek naar die vreemde, ongeloofelijke wezentjes om de tafel. Ze waren allen zo
klein en broos in de fonkelende rose en hemelsblauwe gewaden met teêre bloemen en vogels daarover
geborduurd, rose omzoomd met blauw, en rood met goud, en helgroen met fel geel, alles schitterend en tintelend
in ‘t intenze licht, wijde korte gewaden over wijde broeken, met vage, vermoede vormen er héél even doorkomend.
En dan die gezichten, allen zoo poederwit en bloemenrood, en die ópgaande wenkbrauwbogen, en die kleine
zwarte amandeloogen die niet schijnen te zien wat om hen heen is, maar enkel vage, verre mysterieën! De slanke
droomwezentjes van porseleinen vazen en van op zijden waaiers en schermen en bizarre teekeningen. En alles even
sterk uitkomend van kleur, als rijstpapier zoo intens, kleuren alleen in China te zien. [...] En toen ik weer in de
donkere sampan zat en over de doodstille, duistere rivier gleed, had ik moeite te gelooven, dat ik de schitterende,
kleurige poppetjes van de oude vazen en rijstpapieren plaatjes werkelijk levend had gezien, en dat alles misschien
niet enkel een vertooning meer geweest was op dat immenze tooneel, dat China is.”