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A RARE PAIR OF REVERSE GLASS MIRROR PAINTINGS OF ELEGANT LADIES IN NIGHTTIME TERRACE SCENES Late 18th-early 19th century (2) image 1
A RARE PAIR OF REVERSE GLASS MIRROR PAINTINGS OF ELEGANT LADIES IN NIGHTTIME TERRACE SCENES Late 18th-early 19th century (2) image 2
Lot 36

A RARE PAIR OF REVERSE GLASS MIRROR PAINTINGS OF ELEGANT LADIES IN NIGHTTIME TERRACE SCENES
Late 18th-early 19th century

14 December 2023, 17:00 EST
New York

Sold for US$12,800 inc. premium

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A RARE PAIR OF REVERSE GLASS MIRROR PAINTINGS OF ELEGANT LADIES IN NIGHTTIME TERRACE SCENES

Late 18th-early 19th century
Of vertical format with extremely rare nighttime scenes, each depicting an elegant beauty, one seated at a table reading, the other standing by a low cupboard, each with flowers and both on a fenced terrace with a backdrop of cylindrical columns and swathes of tied curtains, all set against a pitch-black backdrop.
the mirrors 17 3/4in (45cm) X 12in (30.5cm), framed (2).

Footnotes

十八世紀末-十九世紀初 珍罕仕女夜景圖玻璃鏡畫一對

For a very complete picture of the history of Chinese reverse glass paintings, see Francine Giese, Hans Bjarne Thomsen, Elisa Ambrosio, and Alina Martimyanova (Eds.), China and the West, Reconsidering Chinese Reverse Glass Painting, Berlin and Boston, 2023, and in relation to these images, see Chapter 3, Kee Il Choi Jr., 'Illusionistic Practices among Les Arts Du Feu in mid-eighteenth-century Canton', pp. 54-57, where the author notes that such images whilst borrowing from European print sources also leaned heavily on indigenous Chinese sources, be they local in origin (Canton) or derived from other practices in China, especially from the Qing court and professional workshops around Peking (Beijing). The author continues that the vernacular paintings of beautiful women 'meiren hua' attest to the fluid dissemination of vocabularies across these artistic centers. He illustrates a reverse glass mirror painting from a private collection, of slightly larger size, with a similar setting, with a 'Beauty on a Veranda', a type that was exported to Europe by the early 1740s, when the Jesuit painter Jean-Denis Attiret first observed Cantonese glass artisans at work in the Qing palace workshops.

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