Twelve Chinese Painting of Tea Cultivation and Processing

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Twelve Chinese Painting of Tea Cultivation and Processing

About the Item

The superb rare paintings each depict a different part of the process of cultivating and processing tea, each marked on the back with a description in Chinese and English. Inscription in Chinese charcters with the following transliteration & translation. 1. - Preparing fields for planting 2. Locha chung- planting tea seeds 3. Lae cha- watering tea 4. Tseih cha- picking tea 5. Kien ch-selecting tea 6. Shae cha- airing the leaves 7. So cha- rolling leaves 8. Chaon cha- firing tea 9. Chara y seang- packing tea in boxes 10 Lo(u) Shwuy- transportation of chests 11. Ta fuy- Sorting 12 Pang cha-trampling for packing tea Reference: Series of pictures such as these, depicting various Chinese trades and industries, were popular with European visitors to Canton in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The tea culture series represents all the processes from the growing of the tea bush to its final shipment and sale. Since tea was the major commodity of the trade, these watercolours found a ready market with Europeans. (Carl Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade, Woodrbidge, 1999, p. 179.) ‘The tea was cultivated and picked several hundred miles to the north of Canton, the only city from which at this date teas were exported to the West. It was not until the middle years of the nineteenth century that the teas were exported through Shanghai and Fuzhou, both of them closer than Canton to the tea-growing districts’. (Martyn Gregory, From the Pearl River, Exhibition Catalogue, 2006-7, p. 72.) A selection of approximately 200 Chinese export paintings from the V&A's collection were exhibited at the Guangzhou [formerly Canton] Museum of Art in China from 28 September 2003-4 January 2004 where a tea cultivation set was displayed.

Dimensions:
Height: 5.5 in (13.97 cm)Width: 10.25 in (26.04 cm)
Sold As:
Set of 12
Materials and Techniques:
Gouache,Paper
Place of Origin:
China
Period:
19th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1840-60
Condition:
Seller Location:
Downingtown, PA
Reference Number:
Seller: NY75681stDibs: U1210078610296