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Chinese Butterflies.
[Bristol Academy?], Taunton, Mass., 22 April 1828. Ink and watercolor on wove paper, 13.875” x 10” (sheet size). Titled and captioned in ink at top, inscribed at lower-right corner: “Judith Mills Taunton April 22d 1828.” CONDITION: Very good, one .5” document tape repair at verso. A lovely schoolgirl watercolor depicting six “Chinese butterflies,” evidently based on a Chinese pith painting. The caption, reading “In China, the finest and most extraordinary of these insects are sent to court, and applied to the decorations of the Emperor’s palace,” derives from an essay titled “The Beauty and Variety of Butterflies,” which first appeared in The Contemplative Philosopher (London, 1800, credited to Richard Lobb). That piece was partially integrated into a later work on the “Outlines of Entomology,” which was republished in a Boston periodical in 1820, and was probably the source of the language quoted here. Given the strong resemblance between the painting and contemporaneous Chinese export watercolors, it is likely that an example of the latter served as the visual model for the present work. By 1828, the market for pith paintings was flourishing in Canton—the only port in China open to trade with the west—and examples were being imported into the United States via the China trade. Judith Mills was almost certainly a student at Bristol Academy in Taunton, the only such school in town at the time. An advertisement in an 1827 issue of the Columbian Reporter notes that “the spring term at Bristol Academy will begin on…the 9th of May. Instruction will be given in Reading, Writing, Grammar, Geography, History, Natural Philosophy…also in Drawing, Painting, in plain and ornamental Needle work, & c.” The academy was established in 1796, with classes held in a small wooden building. By the 1840s, a new building was erected, designed by Richard Upjohn. REFERENCES: “Bristol Academy,” The Columbian Reporter (Taunton), April 25, 1827; Lobb, Richard. The Contemplative Philosopher: Or, Short Essays on the Various Objects of Nature, vol. 1. (London, 1800), p. 313; “Taunton Then and Now,” Taunton Daily Gazette (2021) online.
Item #7938
Price: $1,750.00
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