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Lot Essay
For these early series of paintings illustrating tea, silk and porcelain production, see the note to the previous lot. Silk was, with tea and porcelain, one of the main Chinese exports. It had been exported as early as the late 13th and early 14th centuries, as well as being one of the staples of the Canton export trade in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Chinese artists traditionally painted in watercolour, bodycolour and tempera on silk, and produced the first export views of Canton and the Pearl River on silk in the 1750s and 1760s, before they began to work on stocks of imported papers. These were more often than not Whatman paper from Kent, more resilient a support than silk (and Whatman's wove papers particularly suited to the humid airs of southern China). The Cantonese artists added oils on canvas to their repertoire from around the 1770s, as the supply of western materials, and demand for paintings, grew.
The Chinese artists traditionally painted in watercolour, bodycolour and tempera on silk, and produced the first export views of Canton and the Pearl River on silk in the 1750s and 1760s, before they began to work on stocks of imported papers. These were more often than not Whatman paper from Kent, more resilient a support than silk (and Whatman's wove papers particularly suited to the humid airs of southern China). The Cantonese artists added oils on canvas to their repertoire from around the 1770s, as the supply of western materials, and demand for paintings, grew.