Page 78 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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butterflies, painted in most faithful and life-like result, it was quite easy for them to find
style.” 70 The oil paintings hung on the wall and employment in other Chinese and Asian port
the watercolours on (pith) paper lay in piles in cities in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. 74
glass vitrines that were placed against the walls. They dominated the painting and print market
Via a small staircase, a sort of ladder with in cities such as Hong Kong, Macao, Batavia,
wooden rungs, visitors could access the first Manila and Surat. A number of descriptions are
floor. Here was the workshop, “where you see known that make clear that Chinese export
from eight to ten Chinese at work, with their artists had already exercised their painting skills
sleeves turned up, and their long pigtails tied in neighbouring Asian countries. At the end of
round their heads lest they should be in the way the sixteenth century, Bishop Domingo de
of their nice and delicate operations.” 71 Charles Salazar wrote to the Spanish king: “What 77
Hubert La Vollée, (1823-unkn.) another arouses my wonder most is, when I arrived no
eyewitness from the time Lamqua was active in Sangley knew how to paint anything (that is, in
Canton (1820s-1855), wrote of his visit to the European fashion) but now they have so
Lamqua’s studio in 1853: perfected themselves in the art that they have
produced marvellous works with both the brush
Une vingtaine de jeunes gens sont là qui copient and chisel.” 75 In 1782, Josua van Jpern makes
des dessins sur de grands rouleaux de papier mention of a Chinese artist in Batavia named
blanc ou jaune, sur cette fine moelle que l’on
s’obstine à appeler en Europe papier de riz, bien
que le riz n’y soit pour rien. […] Il aurait fallu
passer toute une journée pour examiner en détail
les tableaux, rouleaux, albums amoncelés dans
la boutique de Lam-qua. C’est un immense
commerce que celui des peintures. 72

The atelier dominus, the master’s atelier, where
he received his clients, especially for the making
of portraits, was located on the second floor.
(Figure 3.3.) Paintings in all stages of progress
often hung against the panelling and on the
walls of this floor. Western visitors regularly
came to take a look at the progress of their own
portrait or that of others. In the West, great
importance was attached to a portrait painted
by a Chinese artist. “A portrait will have an
additional value in the mother country, by
having been painted by a Chinaman,” as
Downing recorded in 1838. 73
The talents of Chinese export painters from
Canton were in demand. We know from the
research undertaken by Werner Kraus that, as a

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70 Description of Old China street in Canton, in William Heine, Graphic Scenes of the Japan Expedition. Printed Fig. 3.3. Lamqua in his
in colours and tints, with descriptive letterpress. New York: Sarony and Co., 1856. Heine was the official artist of studio, engraving after
Commodore Matthew C. Perry's expedition to Japan in 1853-54. Auguste Borget, 1845.
71 Downing, 1838; facsimile, 1972, 94.
72 La Vollée 1853, 360-362. Translation: Here were twenty youths copying drawings upon great rolls of white
or yellow paper, or upon that fine pith we in Europe obstinately call rice paper although there is no rice in it. [...]
It would take a day to review the pictures, the rolls of drawings and the albums heaped up in the shop of Lamqua.
This picture business in China is immense.
73 Downing, 1838; facsimile, 1972, 114.
74 Kraus 2005.
75 Ibid., 66. Passage from a letter by Bishop Domingo de Salazar to the Spanish king at the end of the sixteenth
century. The term ‘Sangley’ was used by the Spanish in the Philippines until the nineteenth century to indicate a
Chinese.