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Watercolour
Unknown - Enlarge image
Watercolour
- Place of origin:
Guangzhou, China (probably, made)
- Date:
1770-1790 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Watercolour on paper
- Museum number:
E.48-1910
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 125c, case 1
This watercolour is from a set of 24 illustrations of the various stages of porcelain manufacture in China. It shows two potters turning bowls on a wheel, and a man carrying away finished products on a long narrow board. Although the setting has been romanticised, the scene does provide some idea as to how porcelain bowls were made. The same process is still being performed in China today.
Watercolours of this type are sometimes referred to as 'Chinese export paintings', since they were sold mainly to Europeans visiting China. The Honourable East India Company and other private traders from England travelled to China to buy silk, tea and porcelain. Watercolours depicting these industries were particularly popular with the British.
Chinese artists engaged in the export painting profession did not enjoy a high social status. They did not sign their works, while accounts in contemporary native history books rarely mention them. They would never have expected their work to have inspired a porcelain designer in a foreign land.
