TWO FINE REVERSE GLASS MIRROR PAINTINGS OF EUROPEAN LADIES IN CHINESE SETTINGS AND DRESS Qianlon...

TWO FINE REVERSE GLASS MIRROR PAINTINGS OF EUROPEAN LADIES IN CHINESE SETTINGS AND DRESS
Qianlong period
Both of arched-top form with superlative use of the mirror-backed glass, one depicting a beautiful delicately featured European lady in primarily Chinese dress, wearing a floral, blue-ground silk robe and a winter ermine coat but a western-style scarf-headdress with ribbons and flowers, resting her arms on a small stool whilst smoking a long Chinese pipe in her raised right hand, seated on a bench near a side table Chinese with a bowl of fruit and a blue and white vase painted with a dragon and issuing cockscomb and chrysanthemums, at her feet a playful dog begs for attention, all set on a terrace with a view across a mountainous lake landscape with small islands and a distant building with steps to the water's edge, a large tree in the foreground rises just behind her head and disappears behind a tied lace curtain that stretches across the top of the picture; the other depicting another delicately featured European lady in the guise of a shepherdess seated in a coastal or lake landscape, wearing a floral white lace floor-length skirt and red jacket tied at the waist with blue ribbons and wearing a straw summer hat set with flowers and with two trailing ties falling to her shoulders, she rests her head coquettishly to one side on her raised right hand with her little finger to her mouth, two sheep and a ram sit in the landscape around her a ram amidst geometric rockwork to one side and a mountainous backdrop to the other.
25 x 18 3/4in (63.4 x 47.6cm) each, beaded hardwood frames (2).
Footnotes:
乾隆時期 中裝歐洲仕女鏡畫二幅

Provenance:
Chinese Porcelain Company, New York, 1996

Published:
Chinese Porcelain Company, New York, Chinese Glass Paintings & Export Porcelain, 8 October - 9 November 1996, pp. 17-19, no. 5

來源：
紐約Chinese Porcelain Company古董行，1996年

出版：
紐約Chinese Porcelain Company古董行，Chinese Glass Paintings & Export Porcelain，1996年10月8日 - 11月9日，頁17-19，圖版編號5

For a discussion of reverse glass paintings and scenes of shepherdesses, see Thierry Audric, 'A Brief History of Chinese Reverse Glass Paintings' Chapter 16, pp. 262-264, figs 5 & 6 from China and the West: Reconsidering Chinese Reverse Glass Painting, Vitrocentre Romont and University of Zurich, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, 2023 (Francine Giese, Hans Bjarne Thomsen, Elisa Ambrosio, Alina Martimyanova, Eds.)