Page 164 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

18-10-2016 15:46 Pagina 35
64 pag:Opmaak 1
roos boek 129-192 d

found in the collections of Museum Volken-
kunde and the Maritime Museum Rotterdam. 184
(Figures 4.92. to 4.97.)
As Zeng Yuan posted on the Sheridan
Libraries Blog:

[T]hese images depicted various forms of judicial
torture and punishment in the Qing Dynasty as
well as torture apparatuses, including flogging,
bastinado, finger squeezing, cangue, shackling,
torment on the rack, and beheading. In Imperial
Chinese law, torture was a blanket term that
consisted of two forms of legally sanctioned
physical violence: torture as an investigative tool
used in the course of a legal proceeding and
torture as corporal punishment meted out to
culprits after conviction. 185

In the Chinese legal system, there was a different
punishment for every crime. 186 According to
Mason (1804), the images and descriptions of
punishments for big and small crimes caused
unwarranted feelings of disgust in Westerners
about the cruel Chinese approach. They were,
said Mason, misled and the world-renowned
moderation and wisdom of the Chinese court
was undermined by these kinds of prints. 187
According to Downing, too, who resided in
Canton from 1836 to 1837, Chinese
punishments were totally different from what
the paintings made for the West suggested. His
observations from the time indicate that:

[M]any of the painters at Canton make a great
deal of money by drawing terrific pictures on
rice-paper, and selling them to the foreign
visitors, who are ready enough to believe the
natives capable of any kind of cruelty. [...] The
barbarous torments depicted on the rice-paper,
and which have often been supposed in Europe
Figs. 4.92. and 4.93. Figs. 4.94. and 4.95. Figs. 4.96. and 4.97.
Punishment (torture) Image of two Torture scene and
and beheading scene prisoners (from set of prisoner (in album
(from set of 18), 9), anonymous, Dschunken, Kostüme,
anonymous, watercolour on paper, Strafvollstreckungen
---
watercolour on paper, 1876-1878, 10.8. x 7 cm, und einige andere
180 Museum Volkenkunde: inv.nos. 02-461 and 02-
19thcentury,26x32cm, Museum Volkenkunde/ Szenen a.d. Leben
462, 3654-62 and 3654-63, 3654-64; Wereldmuseum
Museum Volkenkunde/ Nationaal Museum Chinas with 72 images
Rotterdam: inv.nos. 3954 to 3957.
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, of daily life,
181 Tillotson 1987, 93-94.
van Wereldculturen, inv.nos. RV-518-21-B processions, rituals,
182 Jackson 2010, 108. More research on footbinding in
inv.nos. RV-624-2 and D. boats, and
China: Wang 2000 and Ko 2005.
and 18. punishments/tortures),
183 Inv.no. 29476-3.
anonymous, c. 1850,
184 Museum Volkenkunde: inv.nos. 518-21a to 21i en
38 x 46 cm, Maritime
624-1 to 18. Maritime Museum Rotterdam: P4411-50 to 68.
Museum Rotterdam,
185 Zeng 2011.
inv.nos. P4411-54 and
186 Mason 1804, 1.
68.
187 Ibid.