19TH CENTURY

The rich spectrum of life in China in the 18th and 19th centuries was recorded in albums containing pith or rice paper paintings covering exotic subjects such as the emperors, processions, punishments, port views and botanical subjects. Typically, paintings of various subjects were bound in an album to take home to the West as a souvenir to remember the exotic life in East Asia by. Much treasured, many albums were dismantled and the various paintings were framed separately, as is the case with these botanical paintings.