Page 74 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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export paintings from China, which were photolithographic facsilime, retaining the
produced in the years from 1750 to well into the original imprints of his records. In the same
nineteenth century for European and American report, he writes that “a considerable portion of
markets, are unsigned. If a painting is signed, it merit is due to the way in which the colours are
does not necessarily mean that the artwork was laid on.” 52 This makes clear that the painters had
made by that individual artist. The name can input in terms of colour use. The painters,
also mean that the painting was created by furthermore, were using various strategies to
several artists in the studio of the signatory. The present their image as being as truthful (or
majority of the painters were thus anonymous. It saleable) as possible, while also, as Koon argues,
is quite conceivable, though, that historical “drawing on earlier pictorial schemes,” which
Chinese export painters, like their present-day was fully legitimate in the Chinese art practice. 3 73
‘colleagues’ in Dafen village, were people with In general, within a society, the set of culturally
aspirations who were trying to make money to defined rules determines choices, but in Canton
buy enough material to continue painting and to the export painters deliberately used design and
meet their costs for food and living. colours that deviated from the prevailing
Unfortunately, little is known about the conventions in the Chinese painting tradition.
training these painters had, what they thought of Most artisans in Canton, who were involved
the art form and what they had in terms of in trade, belonged to one of the 27 guilds that
(minimal) input on the final result. Whether accommodated all commercial activities. 54
there was a kind of a skills test or not when a A guild functioned as a kind of union that took
painter knocked on a painting studio’s door, is care of issues, such as the number of people
also unknown. Their work was frequently involved with a certain craft, working hours,
described as belonging to the ‘Chinese school’. 50 quality standards, salaries and prices. There is
As we analyse this ‘school’s’ products, it is clear no evidence that there was a guild for export
that its painters were trained in a broad variety painters. The fact there was no union for them
of painterly skills. It is assumed by renowned to organise themselves and to work according
researchers of China export painting that many to agreed circumstances made the individual
of the painters began as apprentices at the painter vulnerable in many aspects and
studios, as was the regular practice in other dependent on the whims of bosses and of the
artisan-like professions at that time. Far from market.
being studio workers, slavishly submitted to a From knowledge transferred by, among
commodification rat race, it is more likely, others, Downing, it is known that in the artists’
because of obvious differences in images – studios where paintings were made on glass,
which, at first sight, seem similar – that Chinese canvas and (pith) paper, media such as ivory and
export painters were capable of holding their copper were also used in miniature portraits,
own style, creatively engaging a selection of landscapes and harbour views. 55 Precisely how
techniques and compositions in order to many artists and studios were located in Canton
continue painting; something that they had been is not known. Records of late-eighteenth-century
already been doing for a long time, but using travellers to China on the cultural context of the
different resources. According to surviving Chinese export painting practice are sorely
information from Charles Toogood Downing of missed, but the observations of Western visitors
the Royal College of Surgeons, who recorded his in the first half of the nineteenth century differ
observations from the time that he stayed in and are fragmented and give an ambiguous
Canton, while traveling with the British navy in picture of export painting practice. 56 In 1816,
1836-1837, the perfection of the work “depends as is written down in the Tilden Papers, Bryant
entirely upon the painter’s own taste.” 51 In Tilden (1781-1851), an American China trade
1972, the Irish University Press published a merchant from Salem, mentioned that he knew

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50 Bradford 2005, 82.
51 Downing 1838; facsimile 1972, 99-100.
52 Ibid.
53 Koon 2014, 68.
54 Garrett 2002, 89.
55 Downing 1838; facsimile, 1972, 102.
56 Because a vast majority of the Dutch collections were produced in the late eighteenth century (think of the
Royer Collection), it is regretful that I did not find relevant information or useable sources.