January 20-April 21

“Chinese” Decorative Design (Chinoiserie), plate 2, 1736

“Chinese” Decorative Design (Chinoiserie),
from Cinquieme Livre de Figures
et Ornements Chinois,
plate 1, 1736

“Chinese” Decorative Design (Chinoiserie),
from Quatrieme Livre de Formes
Ornées de Rocailles Cartels
Figures Oyseaux et Dragons Chinois,
plate 3, 1736

“Chinese” Decorative Design (Chinoiserie),
from Quatrieme Livre de Formes
Ornées de Rocailles Cartels
Figures Oyseaux et Dragons Chinois,
plate 4, 1736

 

 

FRANCOIS-ANTOINE AVELINE, French, 1691 - 1743;
after JEAN MONDON THE YOUNGER,
French, active 1736 - 1745
“Chinese” Decorative Design (Chinoiserie)
from Quatrieme Livre de Formes Ornées
de Rocailles Cartels Figures
Oyseaux et Dragons Chinois
etching, hand-colored, 1736
Ackland Fund, 63.43.3-8

 

Elevated on a rocaille structure, a multi-faced, four-armed god is sitting with a sun symbol in one of his hands. His half-naked body suggests a tropical origin for the image rather than a Chinese one. He resembles a Hindu god, but in Bernard Picart’s book, General History of Religious Ceremonies, Styles, Customs of All Peoples of the World (1741), a similar image was introduced as a Japanese idol. The artist may have based his imaginary Chinese god on one of the illustrated books of the time.

Masumi Ninomiya