Chinese Asian Antiques

12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850


12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850

12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850    12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850
An antique mini album containing 12 antique Chinese pith paintings depicting Chinese people. Watercolour on pith paper, ca. Dimensions: 9.7 x 13.3 cm. Condition: good with foxing, as seen in the photos. Please observe the photos carefully, since they are parts of the description. Pith comes from the central column of spongy cellular tissue in the stem of a small tree called Tetrapanax Papyrifera, native to south-west China. It has had a variety of uses, some going back many centuries. At the imperial court both men and women wore coloured flowers made from pith in their hair. It has been used to produce toys for children and in craftwork.

For use in painting, it is cut by hand with a knife into thin sheets from short lengths of the spongy tissue. Cutting is highly skilled and the constraints of the process mean that the finished sheets for painting seldom, if ever, measure more than about 30 cms by 20 cms. The sheets are dried, trimmed and used for painting without any further processing. Some European museums claim that their paintings on pith (often erroneously called rice paper or mulberry pith) come from the end of the eighteenth century but there do not seem to be any dateable examples that are so early. We know of an Italian Count who visited Canton in 1828 and had over 350 paintings on pith in his baggage when he died in Ambon two years later.

In the British Library there is a scrap-book containing six pith paintings and a journal entry by a serving British officer who sent them home from India in 1829. These examples and contemporary accounts by visitors to Canton suggest that there was a flourishing trade in pith paintings by the early 1830s.

This beautiful antique artifact is from. The item "12 ANTIQUE CHINESE CHINA QING DYNASTY WATERCOLOR PAINTING PITH RICE ALBUM 1850" is in sale since Friday, September 18, 2015. This item is in the category "Antiques\Asian Antiques\China\Paintings & Scrolls". The seller is "eternality" and is located in Malmoe. This item can be shipped worldwide.

  1. Type: Paintings
  2. Primary Material: Pith paper
  3. Age: 1850
  4. Region of Origin: China
  5. Original/Reproduction: Original

12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850    12 Antique Chinese China Qing Dynasty Watercolor Painting Pith Rice Album 1850