GGJD25 Gugong Museum: GUGONG JINGDIAN: QINGGONG HAICUO TU. Classics of the Forbidden City: Catalogue of Marine Creatures Collected in the Qing Palace. 故宮經典 : 清宮海錯圖 。 文金祥 主編. Beijing, 2014. 306 pp. Full page colour plates throughout. 29x29 cm. Boards. GBP 100.00 Large-format publication reproducing the first three volumes of a beautiful and unique four-volume album, the Haicuo Tu' (Illustrations of Marine Creatures), painted in 1699 in the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty by the court artist, Nie Huang. The work apparently also drew on western sources but much more research remains to be done on this aspect. The three volumes illustrated are held in the Gugong Museum in Beijing. The fourth volume is in the National Palace Museum in Taibei. A total of 371 marine creatures (both real and mythical) are shown in 155 paintings, reproduced here in good-sized full page colour plates (albeit in a somewhat reduced size to the original work) that allow full appreciation of the images and painter's skill. The work was highly-valued by later Qing emperors, in particular, Qianlong. Extensive descriptions and essays on the importance of the album accompany. In Chinese. Subjects: Painting Natural History Item 104 in List 212. URL for this record: hanshan.com/?g/GGJD25.HTM Record produced by Hanshan Tang Books, www.hanshan.com. |