Description
From an album by James Henry Butt (1844-1936) containing 51 watercolour drawings, 50 mounted on separate pages, with one loose item and three blank sheets. They are mainly in chronological order and were presumably mounted in the album and captioned later, generally in pencil on the album page below the image, though some have monograph signatures, brief inscriptions and dates. The opening view of Cape Town is followed by 45 Eastern ones, mostly coastal, with two figure studies of Japanese girls. The last two drawings are an undated view of Posillipo, near Naples and one of Start Point, Devon, the latter made in August 1870 before Butt's next (home) posting in May 1871. He made all the others while second and subsequently third lieutenant of HMS 'Sylvia', survey ship, Commander Edward Wolfe Brooker (1827-70), which sailed for the China Station in late 1866 via Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and the Andaman Islands to undertake hydrographic work mainly in southern and western Japan. No. 38 of 51. inscribed by the artist on the album page, as title and signed and dated on the drawing, lower left, 'JHB / 12/67. There is also a ' 68' date on the album page above the longer inscription. Chinese tombs are often associated with guardian figures, which is what is presumably shown here in the form of two stone sages. The pair of horses behind are probably also monuments. The Ming Dynasty ruled from 1368 to 1644, its greatest funerary monuments being those of the Imperial mausoleum near Beijing. While Butt clearly shows a historic necropolis of some sort, it is also one which at the time was neglected and being used for agriculture (as the strip cultivation behind the stone figures indicates). The Chinese figure in black included for scale appears to be an official and/or perhaps his guide to the site.
Image Licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Image Credit
© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Location
Shanghai, China
Country
China
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
Buildings & Architecture
