Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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An Old Man Polishing Crystalsfront

© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

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An Old Man Polishing Crystals

  • Description

    Pasted into this leatherbound volume are the original watercolours for one of the earliest illustrated books on Chinese customs to be published in English. At the back is the author’s manuscript together with details of the publisher’s and printer’s quotes and a newspaper cutting announcing the publication.

    The watercolours were purchased in Canton in 1789. They are of a type produced in workshops for sale chiefly to foreigners, for whom they functioned as records of the exotic. George Henry Mason published them under the title Costumes of China yet they equally record trade and leisure activities.

  • Details

    show all
    Associated place
    Asia › China › Guangdong province › Guangzhou (place of creation)
    Date
    1789
    Artist/maker
    Material and technique
    watercolour on paper, with pencil numbering
    Dimensions
    page 32.5 x 25 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    processed material › paper,
    inorganic › stone › graphite,
    inorganic › mineral › graphite
    Technique index
    decorated › painted,
    painted,
    covered › coated › painted,
    marked › painted,
    marked › written › hand-written,
    more
    Object type index
    visual representation › album,
    visual representation › painting,
    communications equipment › manuscript
    No. of items
    n/a
    Credit line
    Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund, the Friends of the Ashmolean Museum, and the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 2003.
    Accession no.
    EA2003.4.139

  • Further reading

    Vainker, Shelagh, ‘Costumes of China’, Orientations, 34/November, (2003), passim

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

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