Trading places: images of Chinese farmers working overseas

Abstract

The Kangxi emperor (r. 1661-1722) revitalized the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving (Gengzhi Tu 耕織圖), a genre of painting that limns the procedures farmers undertake in the cultivation of rice and the manufacturing of silk. Inaugurated in the 12th century, the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving initially had enjoyed limited imperial patronage. In contrast during the Qing era the Kangxi, Yongzheng (r. 1722-35) and Qianlong (r.1735-1796) emperors all enthusiastically patronized the subject, with court artists producing paintings, craftsmen producing woodblock prints and even carved stone stelae. Printed versions were distributed to elite members of society. Through woodblock print albums gifted by the Qing court, the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving entered domestic popular culture, and were disseminated to Europe through diplomatic exchanges. Subsequent book publications in both China and Europe served to consolidate the iconography of this genre’s imagery. Extant examples of 18th-century Canton trade wallpaper in Europe and the United States attest to the international appeal of the reproduction of the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving in this particular medium, one of which George Macartney (1737-1806) personally delivered to an acquaintance. Macartney was not only a distributor of the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, the publication of his papers was an opportunity to produce yet more images of agrarian laborers at work. This paper seeks to establish the parameters of the movement of the printed versions of the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving in the 18th and 19th centuries. It then turns to examine the modes of exchange through which the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, the imagery of the production of commodities, moved between prints and paintings and became commodities themselves.