Width: 46cms
Depth: 35cms
Date: 19th Century
£POA - What does POA mean?
Product Code: KPHA07
Simply put, POA stands for “Price on Application”.
With some of our pieces, we prefer not to openly publish our asking price. We absolutely welcome visitors to the website to contact us to enquire about the cost of such pieces.
We just prefer to have a conversation to allow us to explain the pricing as well as to talk in more detail about the piece in question.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a super expensive piece but it may just be that there is something unique or special that we would like to be able to tell you about in more detail.
Contact us to find out more.
A set of six 19th century Chinese paintings of insects, plants lizards and mice.
Painted with a mixture of watercolour and egg tempura on pith paper, this series is a good example of the ‘export paintings’ created by local artists to sell to wealthy western travellers.
They depict the usual local butterflies and moths feeding on flowers and fruits, but also show the more unusual subjects of crickets, beetles (including dung), spiders, centipedes, mice and lizards. The understated but standout work being the piece depicting the life cycle of a species of black swallowtail butterfly, showing that the artist perhaps had an interest in the natural world beyond commerce.
They would have originally been bound in an album for travel but have been separated and individually framed with a non reflecting glass.
Chinese Pith Paintings
Pith is an unusual and beautiful support to paint on it is made from slices of the stem of the Tetrapanax papyrifer plant. Once dried it provides delicate velvety paper which is particularly good for watercolour painting, it creates a luminous slightly raised image. Pith paintings were very popular in the 19th century, wealthy western travellers would by small albums of the pretty paintings from local artists to take back home to show off or to frame. Popular subjects are flowers, butterflies and moths and scenes of everyday life in China.
We completely understand that purchasing art and antiques online is a relatively new concept to many people, so our team will be very happy to provide additional information and support along the way.
We are members of BADA, LAPADA and CINOA, working closely with these associations and we are very proud of our reputation as one of the most established, valued and trusted dealers of Japanese and Chinese Art and Antiques in the industry.
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