ENSEMBLE DE SEPT ESTAMPES DU MANUEL L'ATELIER DES DIX BAMBOUS

XVIIIe/XIXe siècle

Footnotes

Provenance:
Robert Rousset, Paris (1901-1981)
Jean-Pierre Rousset, Paris (1936-2021)

With the growth of population, wealth, literacy and mobility in Ming dynasty China, cities such as Nanjing and Suzhou became centres for the educated scholar and wealthy merchant classes, and for printing. Scholars who could not find employment as officials at Court sought to enhance their reputation through costly individual print projects and initiated colour printed manuals. Commercial workshops on the other hand responded to the demands of the urban population for novelty by producing sets or single-sheet prints, often emulating the culture of the elite. As C.Von Spee wrote, 'Colour printing reached a level of perfection in the early seventeenth century. Outstanding examples are Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting (c.1633)... and single-sheet prints of birds, flowers, insects and antiquities printed and signed by members of the Ding clan in Suzhou'; see The Printed Image in China: From the 8th to the 21st Centuries, London, 2010, p.18.

The Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting, is the earliest picture collection in China to be printed in colour and the first to include isolated illustrations of subjects such as plants, flowers, birds etc. The Ten Bamboo Studio was the name of the residence of Hu Zhengyan in Nanjing. He was an accomplished scholar in ink making and seal carving, as well as calligraphy and painting, who initiated the production of the manual. See related examples of prints from the Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting, illustrated in Ibid, pp.72-75.

十八/十九世紀 十竹齋木刻版畫 一組七幀

來源：
巴黎Robert Rousset（1901-1981）舊藏
巴黎Jean-Pierre Rousset（1936-2021）舊藏