Pith Paintings Collection 通草紙畫

: [7 paintings depicting the silk industry in southern China]; "7 paintings depicting the silk industry in southern China, specifically lovely women with elaborate robes and hair decorations working with silk, or looms. These beautifully colorful images were produced as keepsakes for foreign traders."-- Vendor.

: Album of 10 water-colour paintings of rice cultivation; 10 pith paintings depicting the transplanting of seedlings, threshing, winnowing, and grinding, etc. of rice in Qing dynasty China.

: Album of 12 paintings on pith paper

: Album of 8 paintings on pith paper showing stages of tea production; "8 watercolours (ca. 230 x 350 mm) on pith paper mounted on album pages with silk ribbon. Bound in silk-covered boards. Oblong folio. The vivid images depict stages in the Chinese production process for tea, from preparing the ground for planting to packing tea chests for export. These images were produced in large numbers in the port of Canton, China during the second and third quarters of the 19th century. Made primarily for the export trade, they are mostly the work of anonymous artists. Although they may resemble enamel paintings, they are actually watercolours on pith paper. Pith is not manufactured, but derived by cutting the inner spongy tissue of a small tree, Tetrapanax papyriferum, which is indigenous to southern China and Taiwan. Most pith paper watercolours, like these examples, are unsigned, though the majority are known to have been produced in Canton where numerous workshops existed. Individual images were often pasted into 19th and early 20th century Australian scrap albums, but it was common to buy the images in sets of 11 or 12, bound into albums with silk brocade covers. The pith paper was supplied held in place on a backing sheet and usually surrounded by a silk or paper ribbon. - With stamp of the "Pakhuismeesteren van de thee Amsterdam" on front flyleaf. Boards chipped and frayed with some loss to silk covers. Some paintings with some minor cracking."--Vendor's note.

: Album of painted figures on pith; "Small album, 6½" x 4½" with 12 hand-painted illustrations on pith, affixed to paper, depicting dramatic figures such as scholars, bannermen, swordsmen, and dancers; red brocade over boards; boards loose, the pith brittle with splits on many leaves, a couple touching images, the images themselves bright and detailed. Laid in is a card printed "C. Edward Mudie" with manuscript note "Pictures hand painted on rice paper. A birthday souvenir from Canton, China." This Mudie is likely the English bookman and pioneer of private lending libraries. Pith paintings were typically produced specifically for the tourist trade. The paper is made from the untreated inner pulp of the pith plant, which absorbs watercolor well and produces strong color against a bright white background."--Vendor's note.

: Album with 12 Chinese watercolours; "[Album with 12 Chinese watercolours].[China, 19th century]. Oblong album (23.5 x 33.5 cm) with 12 delicate gouache and watercolour paintings on so-called rice paper (each ca. 19 x 28 cm), mounted on the album's leaves, each painting framed with strips of blue silk ribbon backed with paper attached at the corners. Embroidered binding (1917 or earlier), green braided ties."--Vendor (FORUM Rare Books) catalog. "An album with 12 vibrantly coloured "pith paintings" showing Chinese junks and other boats, each mounted on a verso (so that the book opens from what in a western book would be the back). Chinese texts appear on the flag of the first boat and stern of the fifth. Pith paintings, often depicting scenes from daily life, flowers, birds or butterflies, were most popular from the 1830s to the end of the century. Parts of the image are painted with a thick layer of gouache (some parts matte and some parts glossy) that sits on the surface of the velvety paper while the watercolour soaks in, giving a distinctive texture and three-dimensional quality. Typically small and fragile, these subtle watercolours were created for the export market to meet the increasing demand for inexpensive souvenirs. There was a flourishing trade in the miniatures, until they were superseded by the less expensive picture postcard. They are painted on what is usually called "rice paper", now sometimes "pith paper", which is neither paper nor made from rice. It is a thin layer of pith cut with a knife from the plant Tetrapanax papyriferum, related to ginseng.With small tears or holes in a few paintings, mostly in the corners and affecting only the open water or sky of the background, some indentations in the paper across the sky, occasionally touching the rigging of a boat, minor spotting, first album leaves and paste-down with marginal waterstains, overall in good condition. A lovely album of brightly coloured Chinese pith paintings of boats."--Vendor (FORUM Rare Books) catalog., Inserted accompanying letter from Scheltema & Holkema's Boekhandel (1917)

: [China trade album, gouache on pith] : [album of twelve bird paintings on pith]

: The Chinese (Qing) imperial couple with their servants.; "A set of 6 beautiful and finely executed Chinese watercolours, on Chinese rice paper, with scenic depictions of the imperial couple of the Chinese Qing dynasty together with their servants. Every watercolour has a recurring composition, showing the emperor or empress together with their court servants in an interior, executed in great detail, all depicted in their traditional costumes."--Vendor's note.

: Collection of 19 pith paintings.; "Collection of 19 considerably damaged colourful pith paintings ... 9 are portraits, 9 birds or flowers and one a Chinese junk. Two portraits inthis collection feature figures from 'Journey to the West' - Monkey King and Pigsy."--Vendor's note.

: Punishment and torture scenes.; "An album containing 12 gouache paintings on Chinese pith paper, interleaved with protective sheets. 20th-century(?) red paper wrappers with hand-painted decorations in gold on the front wrapper."--Vendor (FORUM Rare Books) catalog."Chinese export album with 12 hand-painted depictions of punishments and tortures. The scenes show: a criminal before a magistrate in court; a man being paraded through the street with a weight on his shoulders; a woman kneeling with her hands tied above her head, while two men insert a pole between her wrists; various ways of chaining people; punishment by cangue or wooden pillory and stretching a criminal on a wooden rack; a couple together in a cangue; weighted chains on the neck; stretching on a cross and tied into a basket; some kind of public humiliation; a public flogging; a kneeling woman being flogged while her partner(?) is forced to watch; beheading.Such albums were made for the European market. While support for the abolition of corporal punishment grew, Europeans became fascinated by the cruel punishments that were still carried out in China. The famous London fine printer William Bulmer printed a similar series of engraved views for William Mille in 1801, with explanatory texts by George Henry Mason: The punishments of China: illustrated by twenty-two engravings with explanations in English and French. The present album contains 12 paintings, as does a similar album at the Wellcome Library (which also has a single leaf with a similar scene).Pith paper frayed, sometimes torn or cracked. Some repairs with tape. Binding slightly faded. Otherwise in good condition.l Cf. Wellcome Library no. 573879i and 582331i."--Vendor (FORUM Rare Books) catalog.

: Punishment in China; "Album with 12 pith paintings depicting Chinese torture and execution scenes ... Contemporary Chinese embroidered silk covered binding."--Vendor (Steffen Völkel Rare Books) catalog. "A group of typical 'trade paintings' executed by Chinese native artists for foreign traders. Tourists called them rice-paper paintings from the mistaken notion that their distinctive paper was made of rice. The elegant paper in fact came from the pith of the Tetrapanax papyriferum plant, a member of the ginseng family. When the pith paintings were first sold they were put together as groups of pictures bound in albums. These albums were typically silk covered and could contain 4, 6, 10, 12 or sometimes a lot more paintings in a single album. Many of these albums have been broken up, either when they arrived back in the West or more recently. They have then been framed and hung on walls."--Vendor (Steffen Völkel Rare Books) catalog.

: Textile portrait art and pith paintings collected by Rudolf Lechler, 1858, pioneer missionary and linguist; "Original Chinese art, rare album of artisan pith paintings ... circa 1847-1858 ... containing 64 vibrantly coloured Chinese paintings on pith paper, and 10 dual-medium textured portrait illustrations constructed of textile pieces and hand drawings, made by various skilled Chinese artists and collected by German missionary Rudolf C.F. Lechler (1824-1908) who was sent to China to establish the first Basel Mission there. Four additional large watercolour drawings are placed within the volume, likely made by a Western hand, possibly Mr. Lechler or his wife. Pith paintings vary in size; the smallest measuring approximately 7 x 9 cm, and the largest measuring approximately 12 x 21 cm, mounted into an album. Cloth and drawing portraits measure roughly 20 x 15 cm; these being captioned in manuscript in Chinese by the artists, and in German by a second hand. Watercolour drawings are made on two creased paper leafs, each of the four images measuring roughly 10 x 20 cm."--China in manuscript and photography (Voyager Press Rare Books and Manuscripts), page 20., Accompanied by: Acht Vorträge über China : gehalten an verschiedenen Orten Deutschlands und der Schweiz / von R. Lechler. -- Basel : Im Verlag des Missionshauses, In Commission von Bahnmaier's Buchhandlung (C. Detloff), 1861. (210 pages, 4 leaves of plates : illustrations, music ; 23 cm)

: 清末通草畫集 = Pith album showing Chinese pastimes; "12 delicate small pith paintings in album. Each painting is held in place by means of a blue ribbon border ... Patterned woven fabric binding recased with modern silk spine, fabric ties ..."--Note from vendor.

: 茶景; China export watercolor paintings on pith paper, featuring tea cultivation, processing, trade, and consumption in late Qing dynasty China.

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