[CHINESE GOUACHE PAINTINGS ON PITH PAPER OF PROVINCIAL PERUVIANS AND ARGENTINEANS IN TRADITIONAL COSTUME]

S.l.: s.n., 1835. Very good. Collection of seven Chinese gouache paintings on pith paper (sizes vary: ca. 300 x 220 mm, some blank areas in fragile pith paper cracked or with loss, not affecting gouache paintings -- SEE IMAGES), a few retaining their original blue silk border edges. Each painting is hinged onto stiff lig-free board (377 x 277 mm) utilizing existing (old) cloth hinges and very lightly tipped onto backing board using reversable adhesive; light-green vertical cloth "window" mattes, in front of which are protective mylar sheets, the entire ensemble preserved in a protective cloth case. FASCINATING COLLECTION OF SEVEN CHINESE GOUACHE PAINTINGS ON PITH PAPER OF PERUVIAN AND ARGENTINEAN "COSTUMBRISMO." Examples such as ours are not often seen on the market and due to their fragility, and are absent from many relevant museums and research libraries worldwide.

Among the rarest and least studied 19th-century Cantonese export watercolors are those depicting South American costumbrisimo (or "tipos del pais," i.e. country types) depicting local inhabitants, costumes, and occupations. Lithographs by César Hipólito Bacle (1794-1838), Francisco Javier Cortés (1770-1841) and Francisco "Pancho" Fierro (1807-1879) were taken to Canton where the local artists produced the pith drawings that were sold into the export trade. Some of these were sent back to Chile and Argentina, but due to the often extreme heat and humidity (especially in Lima) the pith simply deteriorated. This practice is well described by Barbara Anderson, who writes that "[these] watercolors remind us that globalism was thriving long before the term was coined in this century. They represent an intriguing and charming, but as yet little understood branch of art that flourished worldwide in an era in which nations were attempting to define themselves in visual terms, to themselves as well as to outsiders." Though commerce between China and Peru and China and Argentina in the early nineteenth century has received scant attention, customs registers bear evidence of an intensive trade.

During the nineteenth-century, legions of Chinese export artists assimilated Western iconography into syncretic pith paintings, and multiples and reproductions abounded. "Chinese artists were so adept that European observers noted with somewhat reluctant admiration that the Chinese will copy anything available to them." (Captistrano-Baker, p. 247). Furthermore, in some instances, "[they] are so well done that it is difficult to accept them as being from an oriental hand." (Crossman, p. 188)

Our Chinese costumbrismo were executed in Canton either by the studio of Kuan Lien-ch'ang (a.k.a. Tingqua), or in the studio of Sunqua. Concerning the latter attribution: two of the paintings in our collection (specifically the "Gaucho Enlazando" and the "Duraznero") are practically identical to the pair that recently sold at Bonhams London on 8 June 2023, lot 152 (for the price of GBP 2,176 including buyer's premium), both attributed by Bonhams' experts to the Sunqua studio. The original exemplars for these were Bacle's famous lithographs of Argentinean costumes, the "Trages y costumbres de la Provincia de Buenos-Aires" published in six parts from 1833-1835 (NB: reproductions of the two lithographs are provided here for comparison purposes). In the bespoke 2023 Bonhams sale (lot 153) were two slightly inferior Chinese costumbrismo paintings, likewise attributed to the Sunqua studio, which realized GBP 1,280.

Bonhams' attribution to the studio of Sunqua is tentative at best, as none of them are signed. We here draw attention to a collection of 36 Tingqua watercolors in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division that strongly resemble ours in terms of composition and execution (LoC LOT P&P 4456). No. 25 in the LoC group depicts a Peruvian man holding a hat and walking stick; everything about the painting is strikingly similar to ours, save the difference in facial gestures: in our example the man has a faint smile, whereas LoC version depicts this same man is grimacing. Because the albums containing the LoC group bear Tingqua's signature, it stands to reason that our collection was executed in the Tingqua workshop, and the four Bonhams examples were (mis)attributed to the studio of Sunqua.

The gouache of the "Tapada limeña" (a Peruvian woman in black Saya revealing just one eye) in our collection strongly resembles the one in the Victoria & Albert Museum. The V&A example is preserved in a three-volume set which contains, inter alia, 19th-century Chinese gouaches of costumes of Chile, Peru, and Manila (MSL/1984/27), some of which were copied after drawings by Filipino artist Damian Domingo (1796-1834). The Ayala Museum holds an album of thirty-one watercolors depicting Philippine peoples, costumes, and occupations, long (mis)attributed to Domingo; in fact, they are also Chinese copies, for which see Capistrano-Baker, p. 242).

Nineteenth-century Chinese pith paintings are notoriously fragile; ours camed to us framed (evidently they had been preserved this way for decades) and were recently removed from their frames by us so that the objects could be seen in their entirety. The paintings are in REMARKABLY GOOD CONDITION, unlike other examples of Chinese "costumbrismo" that were reproduced in the "Lima to Canton and Beyond" blog (see infra). The subjects in the present collection are:

1. A negro priest holding a book (original exemplar unlocated); pith paper split in two places (not affecting painting);
2. A Franciscan friar in blue robes and gold belt (cordelier). Whereas the original exemplar is unlocated, there is a nearly identical example in the Wellcome Collection (581456i). Some insignificant blemishes;
3. An Argentinean peach vendor on horseback, executed after Bacle's "Trages y Costumbres de Buenos Aires" ("Durasnero"). Lower right corner of pith separated, two small holes (not affecting painting);
4. "Tapada limeña" (a Peruvian woman in black Saya revealing just one eye - see supra). Blank portion of upper left corner of the pith torn away, and with two small holes (not affecting painting);
5. Two women, one of which is a "Tapada limeña," the other (who faces away from the viewer) may also be a "Tapada limeña. Whereas the original exemplar has not been located, there is a virtually identical example in the Lilly Library; this was published (but not actually identified) by the organizers of "From Lima to Canton and Beyond: An AI-aided Heritage Materials Research Platform for Studying Globalisation through Art" (31 March 2023 blog);
6. An Argentinean horseman with lasso, executed after Bacle's "Trages y Costumbres de Buenos Aires" ("El Gaucho enlazando" - see additional image of the original lithograph);
7. A bareheaded Peruvian man, holding a hat and walking stick. Whereas the original exemplar is unlocated, there is a nearly identical gouache is in the Museo de Arte de Lima (2008.23.2) and was exhibited in: "La creación del costumbrismo. Las acuarelas de la donación Juan Carlos Verme" (July 2016 - March 2017); cf. LoC LOT 4456, no. 25 in the Tingqua album.

CONCERNING THE TAPADA LIMEÑA: "The traditional street dress of Limeña women from the early viceregal period of Peru, the saya was an overskirt, worn tight at the waist and raised to show off feet and ankles while the manto was a thick veil fastened to the back of the waist; from there it was brought over the shoulders and head and drawn over the face so closely that all that was left uncovered was a small triangular space sufficient for one eye to peep through. The manto is said to have Moorish origins." (Juan and Bailey).

CONCERNING PITH PAPER: Hinton explains that "Pith, the substrate onto which the paint is applied, is not like traditional paper. It's made from hand-cutting thin sheets of the spongy tissue found in the stem of Tetrapanax Papyrifera, a plant native to southern China and Taiwan, and used to mimic silk that was used in traditional Chinese painting. [...] The pith paintings are largely attributed to artists' shops located on the Canton (now Guangzhou) waterfront, depicting scenes of everyday life in the early half of the 19th century. Simultaneously, the Costumbrismo genre of painting was flourishing in Peru, depicting the exotic identity of the Peruvian people in traditional attire. Both niche art forms had striking stylistic resemblance to one another, indicating a shared artistic influence between the cultures." [NB: pith paper was never used in the Andean region]. Hinton is one of the investigators of a major collaborative research conservation project called "Lima to Canton and Beyond," hosted at Nottingham Trent University's ISAAC Research Lab (Imaging & Sensing for Archeology, Art History). One of the goals of the project is to use these Chinese pith paintings of Peruvian Costumbrisimo as a lens to reveal details of global trade and information exchange networks among the Americas, Asia, and Europe in the 19th-century. In the U.S. the ISAAC team has undertaken analysis at the Library of Congress, Yale, and the Lilly Library (Latin American MSS - Peru LMC 1627, vault 2 - as yet uncatalogued). Unexplored collections include the Berlin State Library Lipperheide Collection (eleven watercolors for which see the 1965 Lipperheide catalogue, vol. I p. 392, no. Md20), and the Museum of International Folk Art in Albuquerque (eleven watercolors; see Anderson, infra).

MARKET COMPARABLES: In addition to the two examples at Bonhams London cited above, we find a collection of 14 framed examples sold at Dominic Winter (29 June 2016, lot 413 for GBP 6,500) and two albums containing twenty-two Peruvian subjects in watercolor on pith paper at Sotheby's London (20 June 2001, lot 260 for GBP 5,500 + buyer's premium).

LITERATURE: Barbara Anderson, "From Lima to Canton and Back" (in: El Palacio, Spring 2011, vol. 116, no. 1, pp. 44-55). Natalia Majluf and Marcus B. Burke, "Tipos del Peru: La Lima criolla de Pancho Fierro" (Hispanic Society of America, 2001 - online). Majluf, Reproducing Nations: Types and Costumes in Asia and Latin America (2006). Carl L. Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade (1991). Cristina Juan and Kelly J. Sembrano Bailey, "On Finding Damian Domingo at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London" (Mapping Philippine Material Culture, online). Bobbi Hinton, "International Outreach: Examining Pith Paintings from Lima to Canton," Library of Congress blog posted June 26, 2023. Scholarship concerning the Chinese-Filipino trade in export watercolors, with special attention to the (mis)attributions to Damien Domingo, has been undertaken by F.H. Capistrano-Baker, for which see especially "Trophies of Trade: Collecting Nineteenth-Century Sino-Filipino Export Paintings" (Archives of Asian Art, 2017, vol. 67, no. 2, pp. 237-256; we are grateful to Aaron Pratt for making this article available to us). Darlene J. Sadlier, Lilly Library from A to Z: Intriguing Objects in a World-Class Collection (2019), pp. 83-85 (we are grateful to Rebecca Baumann for making this article available to us).

PROVENANCE: From the Dorothy Sloan Collection of Latin Americana.