Description
A set of five Chinese antique gouache ‘rice’ paper paintings, featuring Chinese junks and duck-farming vessels.
A charming and rare set of ‘rice’, or more accurately, ‘pith’ paper paintings.
Now framed. Retaining their original gilt-tooled folio.
Some minor damages.
It is rare to find these Chinese pith paper gouache paintings with their original folio.
Pith comes from the stem of a small tree called Tetrapanax Papyrifera, native to south-west China.
Cutting very fine sheets of pith is highly skilled, and the constraints of the process mean that the finished sheets for painting rarely, if ever, measure more than about 30 cm by 20 cm.
