Autumn 2023: Chinese watercolour of Asian Fruits

When I change the seasonal banners for my website and Facebook Page, I normally try to pick images for each seasonal banner of flowers or fruits which I'm totally confident are correct for the season. However I've been totally seduced by a wonderful album of Chinese watercolours of Asian fruits - and I have absolutely no idea which ones are correct in which season or even what some of the fruits are - despite three trips to the east (Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) and visiting local markets! Although I think I recognised some....

The main problem is none of the fruits are identified in English and indeed each is identified only by very faint arabic script. However I did recognise the pink pineapple which I regularly see fruiting in the Princess of Wales Glasshouse at Kew.

[Note: feel free to suggest what the fruits are in this image via the comments]

Page 21 of the Album of Chinese Watercolours of Asian Fruits

I found the album:

• in the Biodiversity Heritage Library website
  
• it's also on the Internet Archive and
  
• available to view via the Harvard Library Viewer.

I think the source is the Dunbarton Oaks website where it is identified as a rare heritage folio of Album of Chinese watercolors of Asian fruits]. [between 1798 and 1810]. There's absolutely no indication as to who the painter is.  Such labels as do exist are written in Arabic script - which makes one wonder why they were identified as Chinese Watercolours.

The Harvard reference page states...

Bill Archer and his wife Mildred, an English art historian who specialized in 18th- and 19th-century art in British India, curator of Prints and Drawings at the India Office Library from 1954 to 1980, viewed this album of watercolors at Dumbarton Oaks around 1958 and determined from their style and coloring that the album was most likely painted by a Chinese artist, probably in Malaysia or Sumatra. Archer dated the manuscript to between 1798 and 1810.

while the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library shelflist card apparently states

"Drawn by Indian artists under English influence: probably done in India but has no relation to Chinese artists - check where Chinese were working at this time in India or possibly in Indo-China. Indian artists started this vogue of drawing. Writing is perhaps Malaysian."

Whoever painted them, the first 12 paintings are absolutely fascinating as they are very elaborate compositions which fill the page. they comprise:

• several fruit on each page
• sometimes at different stages of their life cycle
• sometimes peeled or segmented to reveal their internal structure
• surrounded by relevant flowers and foliage

Each of the 12 images are well worth studying in terms of composition and arrangement.

Asian artists who go large.....

I'm a big fan of the adventurous botanical artist with the ambition to "go large"! I well remember being absolutely 'gobsmacked' the first time I saw the botanical paintings of Sansanee Deekrajang at the RHS Botanical Art Show in terms of the astounding content and composition and colour!

​However there are many others whose large and complex artwork I've seen in exhibitions at RHS and Kew.

RHS London Botanical Art Show 2016: Gold Medal for Tropical Climate plants by Sansanee Deekrajang. Copyright: images - Sansanee Deekrajang; photo - Katherine Tyrrell

Maybe it's a trait of Asian botanical artists? During the time I've been studying and reviewing botanical art, I know I've seen some fantastically ambitious, large and complex paintings produced by Asian artists of various countries of origin. It certainly helps you win an RHS Gold Medal on your inclusion in the exhibition!
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