The ethnic minorities of Guizhou

[Qing China]. [Watercolours of Miao people].

€ 18.000,00

An excellent example of Qing ethnographic art devoted to the ethnic minorities of Guizhou, each watercolour paired with a facing description in Chinese calligraphy. An exceptionally comprehensive "Miao album", a primarily visual genre that emerged in 18th-century imperial China, using prose, poetry, and detailed illustrations to brief Qing officials on the customs of ethnic groups in the border regions around Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou, while later copies were also produced to satisfy antiquarian curiosity and armchair travellers.

The spectrum of groups described under the historical umbrella term "Miao" is broad, including sub-groups commonly labelled Bai (White), Hei (Black), and Nong (Peasant) Miao, alongside related or neighbouring communities such as the Luoluo, Zhongjia (Buyi), Dongren (Cave People) and Turen (Earth People). The text places the tribes in specific locations and codifies their behaviour, dress, character, and customs, with a particular focus on marriage and burial ceremonies. The illustrations tend to focus on one particular aspect of their behaviour that stands out and makes them easily identifiable.

As observed in the scholarly literature, the pictorial programmes of such albums were often collaborative, landscapes and figures sometimes executed by different hands - as in our copy. David Deal and Laura Hostetler have written extensively on the subject, providing a translation of the present album based on a copy acquired by Deal in 1976, unable to obtain the original manuscript.

Miao albums rarely surface on the market: only four such albums appear in auction records of the last decade, none of them comprising as many watercolours as our copy (80, 40, 29 and 10 respectively). A unique work of art from a genre that arose in tandem with the awakening of ethnic consciousness and state building in late imperial China.