Page 76 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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Fig. 3.1. Tingqua’s
painting studio,
Tingqua, gouache,
c. 1835, 17.5 x 26.5 cm,
Hong Kong Museum
of Art.

foreign commodities. 64 It allowed affordability persuaded to buy, in all probability Tingqua
or speed of manufacture without sacrificing the made an idealised scene. We see only three
quality of the piles of Chinese export paintings painters at work in a neatly furnished workshop.
that were being exported to overseas markets in They all have the typical Chinese long queue and
response to the huge demand. bold forehead, which indicates that the
Throughout the late eighteenth and the whole Manchurians were in power. They hold their
of the nineteenth century, the artists’ studios in brush in the typical Chinese painting manner (at
Canton were primarily located in Old and New an angle of 90 degrees to the forearm, with the
(after 1822) China Street in the neighbourhood brush straight on the paper). It looks like these
of the foreign factories. 65 Their position close to painters are working individually on their own
export businesses, together with other shops painting – no rows of hundreds of artists with
selling ‘chinaware’, provided them with a bare backs in factory-like surroundings here.
distinct advantage over more isolated small-scale Indeed, this peek into this clean and quiet studio,
Chinese ventures tucked away further into town. probably, puts us on the wrong track and we can
Normally, the Chinese shopping streets were question this staged scene. Tingqua, active in the
filled with shops and workshops relating to one 1830s, showed his studio as packed with
particular sort of trade. The situation in both paintings from a diverse painting genres, but
China Streets was different: “The shops there mainly portraits. Besides paintings on the wall,
were occupied by many trades for the foreigners’ the studio is tastefully designed and furnished
convenience.” 66 with displays of other artworks like porcelain
Just like texts, visual sources provide and steatite-carved objects on stands, fans and
ambiguous information. Images are not neutral literati painting. At the back of the room a tea
objective facts, rather they are always viewed or boy appears from around the corner; the stairs
interpreted differently by different people. Thus, to the master’s sanctuary are clearly visible, and
although the image in Figure 3.1. (1835) a colourful bird surveys the scene. The texts
represents his own studio, where Western of the two couplets in Chinese characters on
customers were allowed to walk in and were the right and left vertical blue signs read,

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64 Dikötter 2006, 34.
65 Van Dyke 2013, 92-94.
66 Garrett 2002, 90.