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creating an innovative new art form. 25 Lee’s provides precious reference material for studying
research into the modus operandi of individual Chinese export painting. Yet, caution is the
export painters and the identification of their credo here. We must remain conscious of the
work is impressive. He gives, us a lot of citations subjective aspects of the reality-value of these
from articles in eighteenth- and nineteenth- sort of images and the untidiness of them as
century English- and Chinese language historical records.
newspapers and journals, such as Nanhai In 2013, in her book Van Gogh on Demand.
Xianzhi, Illustrated London News, The Chinese China and the Readymade, Winnie Won Yin
Repository, and Canton Register. The list of Wong, assistant professor in the Department
contemporaneous manuscripts and books of Rhetoric and History of Art at the University
28 consulted is huge, as is the number of quotations of California, Berkeley, successfully refutes the
from relevant memoires and letters by idea that the contemporary painting practice of
Westerners who were in Canton at this time. Dafen in southern China, where thousands of
Lee’s extensive study of archival sources is very workers paint Van Goghs, Da Vincis, Warhols
valuable for current researchers. and other Western and Chinese masterpieces for
In 2011, cooperation between Chinese and the global market, produces only ‘fake art’. 27
British scholars resulted in the eight volumes of On the contrary, by addressing questions of
Chinese Export Paintings of the Qing Period in imitation, innovation, and appropriation, Wong
The British Library (Chinese-English bilingual gives us new insights into this highly specific
edition). The authors, Wang Chi-Cheng at kind of artistic production. She unravels the
National Central University Taiwan, Frances defintion of art, the making of the artist and
Wood at the British Library, Andrew Lo at the ownership of the image. Furthermore, she
SOAS, London University and Song Jia-yu at the connects the realms of traditional export
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, painting practice as the “longstanding (if
brought together 748 export paintings of forgotten) modern cultural encounter, one in
Chinese society and life in the Qing period. It is which intensive Sino-Western trade has
the first time that they have been published as a connected the Western consumer demand for oil
group. Most of the paintings are rare and a paintings and visual images with the work of
number may well be unique. They are classified skilled painters in China for over two centuries”
into fifteen categories. 26 Each category provides to the twenty-first century Dafen practice that
a brief background to the topic, a summary of sees contemporary artists once again form “a
the content of the paintings, and a concise global supply chain of creativity.” 28 Wong’s
commentary on each painting, based on Chinese work has guided my view on the production of
and Western written sources. The eight volumes, painting in nineteenth-century South China for
with rich pictorial and written sources, are a Western consumption. She demonstrates
valuable contribution to the scholarly discourse. convincingly that this specific and artistic
By highlighting the historical value of the painting production did not dissipate at all in the
paintings, using pictures to corroborate the late nineteenth century, as had been suggested
historical records, and by using written previously.
descriptions to explain the pictures, this work In 2014, Ifan Williams, the Scottish

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25 Ibid., 250-253.
26 The categories are: 1. Canton harbour and the city of Canton; 2. Costumes of emperors, empresses, officials
and commoners; 3. Street and marketplace occupations in Canton; 4. Handicraft workshops in Foshan; 5.
Guangdong Government offices, furnishings, and official processional equipment; 6. Punishments; 7. Gardens and
mansions; 8. Religious buildings and sacrificial arrangements; 9. Urging people to stop smoking opium; 10. Indoor
furnishings; paintings of plants and birds; 11. The Ocean Banner Temple; 12. Scenes from drama; 13. Boats, ships and
river scenes in Guangdong Province; 14. Beijing life and customs; and 15. Beijing shop signs.
27 Wong 2013. Winnie Won Yin Wong is assistant professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Art History at the
University of California, Berkeley. Her research is concerned with the history and present of artistic authorship, with
a focus on interactions between China and the West. Her theoretical interests revolve around the critical
distinctions of high and low, true and fake, art and commodity, originality and imitation, and, conceptual and
manual labour, and thus her work focuses on objects and practices at the boundaries of these categories. Currently
she works on a second monograph on export painting in the period of world maritime trade centered in
Guangzhou from 1760 to 1842. This book will situate the work of anonymous Canton painters within the larger
Qing engagement with European painting.
28 Wong 2013, 37, back cover.