Reflected Beauty

A stunning display of Chinese reverse glass paintings from one of the world’s most important collections.

A product of the encounter between East and West, the manufacture of glass paintings in China was stimulated by European glass paintings brought to the imperial court by traders and diplomats in the seventeenth century. Initially made in Canton for Western consumers, the production of Chinese glass paintings spread throughout China by the eighteenth century. Largely ignored by scholars and collectors in favor of exoticized paintings for the West, Chinese reverse glass paintings depict romantic landscapes, traditional motifs, scenes from plays and novels, and the changing image of the Chinese woman, demonstrating the diverse appeal of this unique and fragile art form. Composed of over one hundred works acquired in East Asia between 1968 and 2012, the paintings presented in this publication are from the Mei Lin Collection, one of the world’s most important collections of Chinese reverse glass paintings from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
 

Rupprecht Mayer is a sinologist, translator, and gallerist who lives and works in southern Germany.