[Colour plate] Pu Qua / Dadley
[A shoemaker]
Published May 4, 1799 by W. Miller, Old Bond Street, London. 40 x 30 cm including mat / passe partout. Hand coloured etching and stipple engraving.
A one cm wide brown band from an earlier mat hidden under the current mat. Nice condition.
A fine image of a chinese shoemaker engraved by Dadley after an original by the artist Pu Qua in Canton. The plate was published for the work The Costumes of China by George Henry Mason. Pu Qua had a workshop in Canton producing water colours for the western market, often depicting trades and costumes. Some of these were purchased by Mason and worked as models for the engravings in his book. Mason was a British army officer who visited Canton in 1789, at that time one of only two chinese cities open to foreigners. The book with its exotic depictions of people in a far away land became very popular in the salons of Europe.
Item No: 4008
