A Finely Coloured Collection of Imperial Costumes

Four large and splendid, brightly coloured watercolours of Members of the Imperial Court including a very fine watercolour of an Archer, Court Ladies,etc

China, [1820], sheet size 410 x 360mm, mounted on card.

Very finely executed, colourful brush drawings on pith paper possibly after Chou Pai Chuen and certainly the quality suggests his style.

Carl Crossman in his book The Decorative Arts of the China Trade (originally published under the title The China Trade) gives an excellent list of export painters with a note of those known to have painted on pith. These include Tingqua, Sunqua and Youqua. From 1757 until 1842 Canton was the only Chinese port open to trade with the west and it is no surprise that of the eight studios identified by Crossman as producing works on pith, six were in Canton. The whereabouts of one was unknown and the eighth was that of Chou Pai Chuen who was exceptional on two counts, firstly because he was a talented artist still painting on pith at the end of the nineteenth century and secondly because his studio was in Peking. We are now able to name some other painters who used pith in addition to the more conventional materials. They include Fouqua (or Foeiqua), who worked in Canton and Chow Kwa, a Shanghai artist highly esteemed for the quality of his oil paintings of the port.