A Chinese export painting of a Peruvian couple on horseback
Canton, circa 1830
Colour on pith paper, H. 21.8 x W. 16 cm
This drawing was produced for export by a Chinese artist in Canton. It is based on Peruvian pictures of ethnic and regional types known as costumbrismo (the visual documentation of costumes and customs during the first half of the 19th century) taken to China by sailors and merchants to be copied in Chinese workshops and exported to markets in Europe and the Americas.
The drawing depicts a lady in the sayo y manto dress. The sayo y manto (long pleated skirt and shawl) was a distinctive costume of upper-class Lima ladies who wrapped the shawl over their heads and faces, leaving only one eye visible, a practice that earned them the name tapadas (the covered ones). Other signs of their upper-class status were their elegant footwear and stockings.
The present work is a rare survivor of the 18th and 19th-century maritime trade contacts between Canton, Manilla and Central and South America. The Manilla-Acapulco galleon trade brought Spanish fashion influence to the Philippines, as shown in the tipos del pais paintings by Jose Lozano, Justiniano Asuncion and Damian Domingo.
Colour on pith paper, H. 21.8 x W. 16 cm
This drawing was produced for export by a Chinese artist in Canton. It is based on Peruvian pictures of ethnic and regional types known as costumbrismo (the visual documentation of costumes and customs during the first half of the 19th century) taken to China by sailors and merchants to be copied in Chinese workshops and exported to markets in Europe and the Americas.
The drawing depicts a lady in the sayo y manto dress. The sayo y manto (long pleated skirt and shawl) was a distinctive costume of upper-class Lima ladies who wrapped the shawl over their heads and faces, leaving only one eye visible, a practice that earned them the name tapadas (the covered ones). Other signs of their upper-class status were their elegant footwear and stockings.
The present work is a rare survivor of the 18th and 19th-century maritime trade contacts between Canton, Manilla and Central and South America. The Manilla-Acapulco galleon trade brought Spanish fashion influence to the Philippines, as shown in the tipos del pais paintings by Jose Lozano, Justiniano Asuncion and Damian Domingo.
Part of the China collection.
