ALBUM OF TEN CHINESE 'MIAO ETHNIC' PAINTINGS
QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY
Estimate: £800 - £1,200
Auction: 16 May 2025 from 09:00 BST
Description
清 苗蠻圖 紙本設色 一冊十幀
ink and colour on paper, ten leaves mounted as an album, painted with Miao people's daily life, each inscribed with a paragraph describing the scene
Dimensions
24.5cm x 20cm each
Provenance
Christie's London, early 2000s (by repute)
2000年初購自倫敦佳士得（據傳）
Footnote
“Miao album” (Miaoman tu or Bai Miao tu) is a primarily visual genre that emerged in 18th-century imperial China, which used prose, poetry, and detailed illustrations predominantly for Manchu and Han nobles, scholars, and gentry, to represent minority ethnic groups living in frontier regions under imperial Chinese control.
Closely comparable paintings are in the collection of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, listed on Open Museum Taiwan: https://openmuseum.tw/muse/digi_object/723cb8845a1c000fc8f1c8a12b0da8bf#213977; Also compare to paintings of similar subject, sold at Christie's New York, 5 April 2016, lot 266.