Period:Unknown Production date:1793-1796
Materials:paper
Technique:drawn
Subjects:chinese official attendant tea preparation/drinking
Dimensions:Height: 443 millimetres (album cover) Height: 234 millimetres (sheet) Width: 182 millimetres Width: 334 millimetres
Description:
A Mandarin’s Lady being served tea by her attendant; woman in full decorated robe and holding a fan seated on the right, female attendant holding a plate standing on the left, tiled floor; from an album of 82 drawings of China Watercolour, ink and graphite
IMG
![图片[1]-drawing; album; print study BM-1865-0520.222-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Unknown/43/mid_01442085_001.jpg)
Comments:There is a list of descriptions of the subjects inserted in the front of the album. This drawing is described as: “30 A Mandarins Lady & her attendant serving Tea, Vide one of the subjects of the Costume of China, in which these figures are engrav’d” The subject in “The Costume of China” (published 1805) referred to above is presumably plate 14 (etched lettering below the image: “W. Alexander fecit” and “London Publish’d Sep.t 1 1798, by G. Nicol Pallmall”), an aquatint entitled ‘A Chinese Lady and her Son, attended by a Servant’. As it seems unlikely that Alexander had access to the same woman and her servant over a sustained period of time during the embassy (the accompanying text to “The Costume of China” plate begins as follows: “The female sex in China live retired in proportion to their situation in life. The lower orders are not more domesticated than in Europe; but the middle-class are not often seen from home, and ladies of rank scarcely ever.”) it would appear that these figures represent types, rather than being individualised portraits. Alexander’s text discusses the use of cosmetics by Chinese women; the common make-up practices he describes specifically – painting the face white; very thin black eyebrows; a red spot on the lower lip – are much easier to discern in the BM watercolour than in the aquatint in “The Costume of China”.For further information about the album, see comment for 1865,0520.193.
Materials:paper
Technique:drawn
Subjects:chinese official attendant tea preparation/drinking
Dimensions:Height: 443 millimetres (album cover) Height: 234 millimetres (sheet) Width: 182 millimetres Width: 334 millimetres
Description:
A Mandarin’s Lady being served tea by her attendant; woman in full decorated robe and holding a fan seated on the right, female attendant holding a plate standing on the left, tiled floor; from an album of 82 drawings of China Watercolour, ink and graphite
IMG
Comments:There is a list of descriptions of the subjects inserted in the front of the album. This drawing is described as: “30 A Mandarins Lady & her attendant serving Tea, Vide one of the subjects of the Costume of China, in which these figures are engrav’d” The subject in “The Costume of China” (published 1805) referred to above is presumably plate 14 (etched lettering below the image: “W. Alexander fecit” and “London Publish’d Sep.t 1 1798, by G. Nicol Pallmall”), an aquatint entitled ‘A Chinese Lady and her Son, attended by a Servant’. As it seems unlikely that Alexander had access to the same woman and her servant over a sustained period of time during the embassy (the accompanying text to “The Costume of China” plate begins as follows: “The female sex in China live retired in proportion to their situation in life. The lower orders are not more domesticated than in Europe; but the middle-class are not often seen from home, and ladies of rank scarcely ever.”) it would appear that these figures represent types, rather than being individualised portraits. Alexander’s text discusses the use of cosmetics by Chinese women; the common make-up practices he describes specifically – painting the face white; very thin black eyebrows; a red spot on the lower lip – are much easier to discern in the BM watercolour than in the aquatint in “The Costume of China”.For further information about the album, see comment for 1865,0520.193.
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