Description
oil and gilt on ivory, depicting a British officer in military uniform and an elderly gentleman in a suit, in original fitted boxes, both bearing label of 'Yee Cheong', each box containing a handwritten note apparently giving instruction as to how to carry out the composition and colouring of the two portraits (2)
Dimensions
11x8.2cm
Footnote
Note:
Also known as Yi-chung, Yee Chun and Ye Chung, Yee Cheong operated a photography and painting studio in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Fujian from the 1860s to the 1890s. He was among the first Chinese painters to make use of photography, introduced to China by Western diplomats and missionaries. The striking realism of these two portraits suggests that they were each copied from a daguerreotype.
For a Portrait of a Boy in Cavalier Costume, about 1870, also by Yee Cheong, see the collection of The Getty Research Institute, 2003.R.22.11.