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The majority of the images in this book are centuries of interaction between the painters of
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produced by Western painters. This extensive Japan and China and those of the West; in doing
collection catalogue, with 246 illustrations, is so, he provides a good basis for understanding
worthy of mention due to its early publication the artistic history of East-West relations in
date and the widely accepted high degree of painting. He takes great leaps through history,
reliability of the representations of the locations however, and makes a number of generalisations
and objects pictured. In its time (1924), this rare about Western influence on Chinese painting. 7
book of great value was immediately adopted as In 1980, in ‘The Chinese Response to Western
a reference work. It meticulously illustrates the Art’ in Art International, Sullivan discusses the
history of the Chinese south coast between the influence on Chinese painting of Jesuit painters
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24 seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and it is for at the imperial court. In this essay, he makes
this reason that Orange’s book is a valuable clear how the spread of Western painting
guide for the studies of images of Chinese export conventions to the Chinese imperial court
paintings. evolved via the east coast of China to the
In 1950, another important illustrated southern port city of Canton.
reference work about Chinese export art One of the most important studies to date
appeared. Margaret Jourdain and Roger Soame was undertaken by Carl Crossman. He wrote
Jenyns wrote Chinese Export Art in the The China Trade in 1972 and produced a new,
Eighteenth Century, which can be considered as extended version in 1991, The Decorative Arts
a first attempt to define the term ‘Chinese export of the China Trade: Paintings, Furnishings and
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art’. Attention was given to lacquerware, wall Exotic Curiosities. Herein, he provides a
hangings, prints, paintings, porcelain, enamel detailed overview of the art and material culture
painting, ivory carvings and silk. Within the that accompanied Chinese export trade in tea,
theme of ‘paintings’ they mostly deal with silk and porcelain. He regularly cites from
reverse glass paintings. Woodblock print art is primary sources on the various categories of
also mentioned, albeit indirectly. In addition, the export art, such as (reverse glass) paintings,
authors wrote a short passage on Chinese furniture, lacquerware, ivory carvings, fans,
watercolour paintings on ‘rice paper’ [sic] with silverwork and tinware, wall hangings, etc.
images of Chinese flora, butterflies and insects. Crossman’s research traces three generations
There is no mention of Chinese export oil of an export painter’s dynasty. This has made
paintings with depictions of Chinese ports or it possible, on the basis of style analyses and
ship portraits, which were also very popular in technical comparisons, to attribute (or not)
the West at this time. Jourdain and Jenyns Chinese export paintings to individual Chinese
provide comprehensive historical information export painters and their studios. Given the lack
from primary seventeenth-, eighteenth- and of available sources with regard to these
nineteenth-century sources. However, an painters, the information that Crossman
omission in this book is any reflection on the provides is sometimes arbitrary. A number of the
content of the depictions. By contrast, their painters he mentions are known from Western
footnotes are particularly informative and travel reports, but other names given by
encourage further reading. Crossman are questionable. He speculates too
In the 1980s, American scholar Michael often about the origin of certain paintings
Sullivan (1916-2013) posited that the genre of without any solid research to support his claims.
Chinese export painting should be included in Despite the scarce sources and many
the paradigm of Chinese art. In The meeting of ambiguities, Crossman is convinced that it
Eastern and Western Art, he discusses four should be possible to identify every Chinese

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5 Most of the paintings and graphics pictured are by, among others: George Chinnery (1774-1852), Thomas Daniell
(1749-1840), Thomas Allom (1804-1872), Auguste Borget (1808-1877) and William Alexander (1767-1816).
6 Jourdain & Jenyns 1950. Margaret Jourdain was the first to introduce the term ‘Chinese export art’. Before 1950
this term was never mentioned in the literature. See also: Wilson & Liu 2003, 10.
7 Sullivan 1989. Michael Sullivan (1916-2013) was Fellow emeritus at St. Catherine's College, Oxford University and
author of, among other works: Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China, California, 1996, and The Meeting of
Eastern and Western Art: Revised and Expanded Edition, California, 1997.
8 Sullivan 1980, 8-31.
9 Carl Crossman is former curator at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. This museum’s collection consists
primarily of objects that were sold and collected in the American-China trade. The origin of the Chinese art objects
was well-documented on arrival in America. Thus, the objects are reliable sources for art historical research.