Page 206 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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from Hemmingson, who worked for the VOC in an ‘enchanted fairy-land’; an image of China
Canton from 1765 to 1790, and who purchased that people in ‘the West’ were willing to hold on
his items directly from Cantonese workshops. 28 to at a time when interest in this distant and
In addition to those items that came straight mysterious empire was still growing, albeit an
from Canton, part of the Royer Collection was image that was no longer entirely positive. In
also purchased in the Netherlands, where 1883, after the dissolution of the Royal Cabinet,
around 1800 a large variety of Asian objects the paintings were relocated to the National
were available. No precise information has been Ethnographic Museum (Museum Volkenkunde)
found about how Royer acquired the winter in Leiden, where they have remained ever since.
views, but that he also wanted a set representing Secondly, we know that the other three
winter landscapes for his Chinese research Chinese winter views, acquired by the Royal 205
collection is undisputed. After Royer’s wife died Cabinet between 1824 and 1860, also ended up
in 1814, the paintings in the Royer Collection in Museum Volkenkunde and, like the Royer set,
were bequeathed to the Dutch King Willem I, since 1883 have only been available to view and
who in 1918 founded the Royal Cabinet of to consult in the depot. John Clark, an
Rarities, where the paintings were subsequently Australian art historian who is familiar with the
housed. In the oldest description (1816) of the topic of Chinese export painting and
objects in Royer’s museum, written by its first contemporary Asian painting, raised the
director, Reinier Pieter van de Kasteele (1767-
Figs. 6.17.a. to 6.17.c. A
1845), the six paintings are entitled: ‘Six winter wintry landscape with
views in Tartary painted on canvas’. 29 The
equestrienne crossing
seventh painting was added later. The Guide to
a bridge, anonymous,
Viewing the Royal Cabinet of Rarities
oil on canvas, c. 1800,
(Handleiding tot de bezigtiging van het
74 x 112 cm, private
Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden) of
collection.
1823 provides a schematic and geographical
classification of the Cabinet. 30 Here, too, the six
winter landscapes are specifically mentioned.
The description of Room 2 of the Cabinet, filled
with “products from Sina, all visibly exhibited in
cabinets or on lecterns, a few hung on the wall
or standing on the ground” 31 teaches us:

Room 2, On the wall
[…]
Six pieces, winter scenes of Tartary, very
elaborately painted on canvas. 32

The fact that this set was given a prime place on
the wall in Room 2 and was not consigned to
the Cabinet’s depot, says much about the
aesthetic value that Van den Kasteele awarded to
these rare and visually captivating images with
their storytelling format. He must have known
that they were unique in the Netherlands.
Moreover, the audience of this publicly
accessible Cabinet must have loved them and
their imagination would have been pricked when
viewing these paintings with their peculiar kind
of beauty. Indeed, they reinforced the image of

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28 Meilink-Roelofsz 1980, 458-469.
29 Van Campen 2000-b, 323. The 1816 inventory by R. P. van de Kasteele contains the oldest known descriptions
of the objects in Royer’s museum, and served as the basis for a catalogue of the collection.
30 Van de Kasteele 1824.
31 Van de Kasteele 1823, 32.
32 Ibid., 43.