[TRAVEL ALBUM - CHINA - INDIA - JAPAN].
[Travel album containing Chinese, Japanese, and Indian artworks].
[Asia, ca. 1890]. Oblong album (ca. 20.5 x 26 cm). With 16 gouache paintings on pith paper framed by silk ribbons, 4 partly coloured woodcut illustrations, and 11 prints and drawings of India. Early or mid-19th-century gold- and blind-stamped beige calf, with a gold-stamped single fillet frame on the diamond-patterned boards, floral blind-stamping and the words "scrap book" lettered in gold on the spine. [1 blank], [31], [38 blank] ll.
€ 4,500
Collection of 19th-century Chinese, Japanese, and Indian artworks, likely compiled by a Western traveller or merchant around 1890. The collection contains vibrant Chinese pith paper paintings, Japanese woodcut illustrations of mythological and religious stories, and drawings and prints of scenes of daily life in India, all tipped onto the leaves of an album. Several of the Indian artworks are dated "1833" on the back, the year in which British parliament passed the Government of India Act, which centralised British governance in India. The draughtsman was apparently in India during this time and may have been related to this.
The Indian artworks, which make up a third of the collection, consist of 11 ink drawings and prints, of which the latter have often been enhanced by hand. A few of them are captioned in English at the bottom, and signed and dated at the back. They include studies of a man bathing in the Ganges, Bhisthi's carrying water, ships in the Ganges, cattle, and farmers. These subjects suggest that the draughtsman was located in North-western India, possibly Bengal, where the new centralised government was also seated. The Chinese pith paintings in the collection likely date to the end of the 19th century and depict members of the Chinese court, insects, birds, flowers, and ships. They were produced in Chinese port cities and typically bought by Westerners as a keepsake of their time in China. The album further includes four partly coloured woodcut illustrations with scenes from Chinese and Japanese mythology and religion, such as a Great Arhat/Luohan riding a tiger. Two of them are captioned in Japanese, but using Chinese characters. These woodcuts are stylistically cohesive and clearly part of the same series.
Four of the Indian artworks are signed and dated on the verso ("Beradstanis(?) 1833"). The edges and corners of the boards are somewhat scuffed, the joints are slightly weakened, but the structural integrity of the binding is still intact. The leaves of the album are somewhat foxed, many of the pith paintings have small tears and holes, as usual, a narrow strip of the bottom of the painting on leaf [10] is detached, including the silk ribbon, the prints of boats in the Ganges are slightly browned and worn around the edges. Otherwise in good condition.
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