Album of 84 Chinese watercolours, c.1790s, in contemporary album - photo 1
Album of 84 Chinese watercolours, c.1790s, in contemporary album - photo 2
Album of 84 Chinese watercolours, c.1790s, in contemporary album - photo 3
Album of 84 Chinese watercolours, c.1790s, in contemporary album - photo 4
Album of 84 Chinese watercolours, c.1790s, in contemporary album - photo 5

Album of 84 Chinese watercolours, c.1790s, in contemporary album

Lot 103
21.09.2023 10:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 25 000
AuctioneerSotheby´s
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1026937
Lot 103 | Album of 84 Chinese watercolours, c.1790s, in contemporary album
Estimate value
£ 25 000 – 35 000
Album of Chinese watercolours, c.1790s

84 watercolours (of 85 originally in album), each c. 435 x 365mm., on Whatman paper (visible date 1794), on paper mounts, mounted recto and verso, each watercolour captioned in Chinese characters on lower right-hand margin, and in English on lower margins of mounts, some English captions naming individuals depicted, bound in a contemporary half morocco over marbled boards by W. Kent, High Holborn, with his ticket,, paper label to upper cover ("85 Chinese Figures, costumes, of different ranks, countries, etc., and musical instruments as played upon"), extremities rubbed

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, and centred on the treaty port of Canton (Guangzhou), there existed a thriving trade in ethnographical watercolours executed by local Chinese artists and sold to the western merchants and travellers. The best-known result of this trade is William Mason's The Costume of China, first published in London in 1800, illustrated with 60 hand-coloured aquatints adapted from a series of original watercolours by Pu-Qua of Canton. But where Pu-Qua’s illustrations depicted the world of tradesmen and mendicants, the current album is largely given over to higher-status individuals. There are few figures here who carry the tools of their trade. Instead we see wealthy women playing musical instruments, cavalry soldiers with their horses, figures displaying imperial family in their finery, priests, judges and so on.

Local artists commonly worked from a set series of models and were often supplied with high-quality British wove paper, such as this Whatman paper, when producing for an export commission. This album was almost certainly produced for James A.J.L.C. Drummond (1767-1851), later 5th Viscount Strathallan. Drummond made his fortune in the service of the East India Company in China, where he served from 1786 to 1807. Drummond is also believed to have commissioned unique wallpaper decorated with with a detailed depiction of Canton before returning to Britain. This wallpaper was used to decorate the Ladies' Salon at Strathallan Castle and is now at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA.
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