Page 154 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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(hebi). 143 These collaborative projects, in turn,
provided a chance for Cantonese painters to see
the work of the court painters in Beijing, whose
working methods (with master painters and
apprentices, using templates and grids, dividing
the labour and module-production) were
comparable to the situation later in the Canton
export painting studios. Moreover, in the early
years of the nineteenth century a new class of art
collectors emerged in China. 144 This was
primarily a rich middle class, including salt and
textile merchants from Yangzhou, which paved
the way for Western-style prints and paintings
(including winter landscapes) from Beijing to
Chinese coastal towns and the south of China. 145
It is known that among the woodcuts from
Suzhou, landscapes that applied the Western
central perspective were already found in the
Qianlong period (1736-1795) and such prints happy to show off back home. Although they Fig. 4.71. River scene,
sometimes featured an inscription or a seal depicted imaginary, composed landscapes, most anonymous,
saying ‘former imperial painter’ or ‘taixi’ of the export winter views faithfully expressed watercolour on paper,
(Western). 146 This latter term appears, according what Westerners thought wintry Chinese sepia drawing washed
to Wang, to indicate their stylistic connection landscapes should look like. with ink, 19th century,
with Western pictures, “a mark that would have 18 x 24.5 cm,
increased the value of these prints and attracted - River scenes Tropenmuseum/
potential buyers who were interested in exotic River scenes have long been a favourite theme in Nationaal Museum van
things.” 147 It is certainly imaginable that, Chinese painting practice. However, similar to Wereldculturen,
ultimately, prints of landscapes arrived in the winter landscapes, Chinese life on the river and inv.no. TM-1574-2.
southern port city of Canton via this northern in the countryside was a subject that was not
route. collected in great numbers in the Netherlands.
Because winter views perhaps reminded The river scenes from the Cantonese painting
Westerners too much of the winter back home, studios often represent members of aristocratic
this genre was apparently taken back less families strolling in a garden, picnicking or
frequently than were, for instance, harbour wandering along the banks of the Pearl River,
scenes. The fact that they did sell has to do with or in the environs of Macao or the quayside at
the fact that the landscapes exuded a typical Canton. A few paintings, such as the examples
Chinese atmosphere, which the Westerner was in Museum Volkenkunde and the Tropen-

Figs. 4.72.a. and 4.72.b.
River scenes, Sunqua’
(s studio), watercolour
on paper, 1830-1865,
18.4 x 25.8 cm,
Museum Volkenkunde/
Nationaal Museum van
Wereldculturen,
inv.nos. RV-1239-383a
and 383j.

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143 Shang 2005, 98. A known collaborative project is Castiglione’s work Suite des seize estampes representant les
conquetes de l’Empereur de la Chine. This was 16 copper engravings that arrived in Canton in 1776. Other Western
missionaries also had groups of Chinese painters with their works (amongst others Jean-Denis Attiret, 1702-1738;
Ignatius Sichelbart, 1708-1780).
144 Ibid., 100.
145 Kobayashi 2006, 262-286. Shang 2005, 100.
146 Hironobu Kohura quoted in Ter Molen 1990, 99.
147 Wang 2014-b, 389.