Page 158 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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companies, could well be of a place in Jehol, the matter represents a Chinese particularity that
imperial park, now called Chengde. Emperor makes the depicted scenes in demand among
Qianlong often granted audiences of this sort Western buyers of artworks while doing their
there. Despite the fact that it is the emperor who trade in the Pearl River delta. The value
is represented here, the Chinese export painter accruement for this kind of theme is primarily
took the unusual step of depicting him on the to do with the elegance, dignity and authority of
left side of the painting, looking directly at the the imperial ambiance, a stately and mysterious
officer and the Mandarin in the middle of the world belonging to Chinese society, but
composition. As a general rule, paintings fascinating for a Western audience. After all,
depicting the emperor would show him in a such an image offered a glimpse of the ever-
somewhat exaggerated size, and always placed closed palace life and thus was a coveted 157
at the centre of the composition, or higher than window on an ‘exotic’ world.
the rest of the figures. 162 In his Anecdotes
concerning paintings (Tuhua jianwen zhi), Interior and garden scenes
Guo Ruoxu (c.1020-after 1075), a scholar in The images of figures in Chinese interiors and on
the Northern Song period (960-1126) recorded, garden terraces were often, so is believed,
that: “in depicting personages one must meticulous representations of the living
differentiate between the images of the noble conditions of Chinese families. Given that most
and the base, and pay attention to the attire of Westerners never gained access to the houses and
the dynasty. [...] Emperors and kings should be gardens of the Chinese, these images, which
elevated as sagely images of Heaven itself.” 163 represented especially the grandeur of
In export paintings, however, the artists did aristocratic families, were popular. Moreover, we
not have to follow these rules so strictly, and know that in the eighteenth and nineteenth
the emperor could be depicted to the right or centuries it was the height of fashion to have
left. something ‘exotic’ at home. 164 The kinds of
These two images were frequently painted scenes like those shown in the Figures 4.79. to
and sold as companion pieces in a set of two.
Figs. 4.79. to 4.81.
Both an imperial garden reception and an
Three interior and
emperor’s audience were subjects that typically
garden scenes (from
fascinated Westerners. The fact that there are
set of 19), oil on glass,
two almost identical examples of both images in
anonymous, 1785-1790,
Museum Volkenkunde, both executed in two
52.5 x 81 cm,
different media – as a reverse glass painting and
Museum Volkenkunde/
as an oil painting on canvas – is very special. On
Nationaal Museum van
one hand, this says something about their
Wereldculturen,
commodity/export value with this genre painted
inv.nos. RV-360-1131,
again and again, while individually executed on
1119 and 1129.
various media. On the other hand, this subject

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162 Ibid., 94. Yu 1995, 42-50.
163 Guo, quoted in Yu 1995, 42. Yu is a research and curatorial associate at the Palace Museum in Beijing,
specialising in classical paintings. The Tuhua jianwen zhi is also known as Experiences in painting (Tu-hua chien-wên
chih) An eleventh century history of Chinese painting, together with the Chinese text in facsimile. (Kuo Jo-hsü, and
Alexander Coburn Soper, Washington: American Council of Learned Societies, 1951).
164 Crossman 1991, 159.