Page 163 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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roos boek 129-192 d

covered album with images of mandarins and
dignitary women with their servants, the
watercolour sheets have inscriptions in Chinese
with its English translation like ‘Yue Liang [...]
of the ambassador who […] with Lord Elgin’,
‘Prince Kewing, regent-emperor’, ‘Hsien Feng
1851-1861, deceased emperor’, ‘An empress’,
and ‘Taiping Wang, head of the rebels’. (Figures
4.91a. to 491.d.) They belong to the sets of
albums with watercolours on pith paper
162 collected in the 1850s by the Jacobson family,
Rotterdam tea tasters and traders in other goods
from ‘the East’. These watercolours are very
Fig. 4.90. Portrait of a
detailed in their execution, and are unique in
Chinese woman,
their sort among the portrait paintings in the
leaning on a table with
Dutch collections.
a book in her right
In closing this section, I can conclude that the
hand, anonymous, oil
Dutch collection of portraits are not as
on canvas, 19th century,
impressive as those in our neighbouring United
58 x 45 cm,
Kingdom. What does this say about the Dutch?
Museum Volkenkunde/
That fewer of them sat as models in the Lamqua
Nationaal Museum van
or Spoilum studio than English officers and
Wereldculturen, 180
collections. I agree with Tillotson that these seamen? That they did not bring in a
inv.no. RV-02-461.
kinds of portraits were not painted from a live daguerreotype of their beloved wives or
model, but rather were copied from earlier daughters to the Cantonese painting studios to
works. 181 See Figures 4.89.a. to 4.89.d., and be transferred onto an enlarged colourful oil
4.90. Further, they did not represent any painting? Clearly the nineteenth-century Dutch
individual aristocratic Chinese figures, rather man preferred not to be a sitter himself; instead,
they refer to a concept of a definition the he liked to bring back portraits of ‘different’
Chinese elite. For the European client, it must Chinese people, for the sake of a more
have been an exciting thought to have such an interesting narrative. And indeed, there were
idealised, typically Chinese portrait hanging on stories to tell about these colourful paintings of
Figs. 4.91.a. to 4.91.d. the wall. The depicted small ‘lily’ feet of the Chinese ladies with bound feet and in elegant,
Five portraits of famous ladies, their demure or suggestive positions or seductive poses, or about Chinese princes and
Chinese persons (Yue the come-hither looks were major reasons to princesses and Mandarins in full dress.
Liang, Prince Kewing, bring these paintings home. Moreover,
Hsien Feng, an empress, “handling the feet during lovemaking was an Punishments and torture
and Taiping Wang; important factor” and Westerners knew the The ‘fascinating’, but particularly morbid
single sheets in album, connotation of bound ‘lily’ feet with courtesan- Chinese methods of punishment and justice form
anonymous, prostitute. 182 Imagine the bucko stories of the a separate category in export painting. Mostly
watecolour on paper, nineteenth-century ‘tough’ seamen to their male executed in watercolours and purchased in sets,
1850-1860, friends back in Europe. these prints of chained and tortured prisoners
Wereldmuseum The Wereldmuseum Rotterdam has five loose were less popular and less suitable for taking
Rotterdam, sheets that reference ‘real’ Chinese people. 183 home than harbour views or images of Chinese
inv.no. 29476-3. Tucked away in their storeroom, in a silk daily life in all its facets. Yet, they can still be