Page 155 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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museum, portray simple peasants with their
cattle or at work in a pastoral setting or on the
waterfront. 148 (Figures 4.70. and 4.71.) A set of
watercolours of river scenes in the Leiden
museum collection, by contrast, shows clean
river settings with a single boat, along quiet and
orderly village-like spots around Canton. 149
(Figures 4.72.a. and 4.72.b.)
River scenes, like mountain landscapes,
Buddhist symbols of good fortune or pavilions,
154 pagodas, figures of zotjes and lange lijzen
(shaved-bald children and elongated women
figures, the so-called long elizas), dragons and
Fig. 4.73.a. Landscape,
phoenixes, and similar scenes, were often also
Esaias van de Velde
painted on export porcelain. Cantonese export
(1587-1630),
painters were thus apparently well aware that
oil on oak panel, 1622,
the river landscape was a favourite subject for
28 x 34 cm,
Westerners as well. An observation by Downing
Private collection.
in his The Fan-Qui in China in 1836-7 reads:
Fig. 4.73.b. River scene,
What a different appearance it has to what you
Salomon van Ruysdael
had imagined! The idea which is conveyed to
(c. 1600-1670),
you by seeing those pictures which in England
oil on panel, 1633,
are said to represent Chinese scenery, and the
61.5 × 100.5 cm,
like of which are painted by the natives on their
Museum of Grenoble.
porcelain, would make you imagine that the
whole country was laid out as a parterre, with add life and variety to the scene. 151
gravel walks and grottos; that you could not
move one step without danger of running Henry Borel (1869-1933), who was in China
against a crockery-ware pagoda, or into a canal, and Indonesia from 1892 to 1898, describes the
filled with gold and silver fish. 150 river landscape of Canton as follows:
The American missionary Benjamin Couch On the other side of the wide, broad river, full of
Henry (1850-1901), who collected plants on his sampans and other barges, a separate city of
missionary itineraries in the 1850s, recalled the little boats on the water, crawling with people
wetlands scenery in the Pearl River delta. and the din of shouting. A tributary bends left,
inland, an enormous silver stripe, glittering
The delta of the Pearl River is one of the most through the far plains, with here and there a
remarkable in the world, in the richness of its huge golden sail, glorious in the sun. 152
soil, of its varied products it annually gives
forth, and in the density of its population. Its In the realm of composition and technique,
apex is at San-shui (Three Rivers), the point Chinese landscape painting is, according to
where the West, North, and Pearl Rivers mingle Crossman, often also a reflection of English and
their waters. [...] The whole extent of this Dutch painting traditions. 153 There are indeed a
district is so intersected by canals, as to render number of Dutch and Flemish landscape painters
every point easily accessible by water, and the who, in terms of their atmosphere and subject
incessant lines of boats of all shapes and sizes matter might have served as sources of

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148 Museum Volkenkunde: inv.nos. 360-1135, 3654-65 and 66. Tropenmuseum: 1574-2.
149 Inv.nos. 1239-383a to 383k.
150 Downing 1838; facsimile, 1972, 66-67.
151 Henry 1886, 56 and 63.
152 Borel 1896, 183. “Aan de andere zijde de wijde, breede rivier, vol sampans en andere schuiten, een aparte stad
van bootjes op het water, vol wriemeling van menschen, en rumoer van schreeuwen. Links buigt zich een zijstroom
landinwaarts in, een enorme zilveren streep, schitterend vér door de vlakte, met hier en daar een groot gouden zeil
glorieus in de zon.”
153 Crossman 1991, 163.