At the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese painter Zhou Peichun started mass-producing beautiful watercolour paintings depicting life in Beijing. Rosalien van der Poel writes about two of his... Show moreAt the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese painter Zhou Peichun started mass-producing beautiful watercolour paintings depicting life in Beijing. Rosalien van der Poel writes about two of his paintings that were recently restored by textile conservator Sjoukje Telleman.The colourful paintings discussed in this blog once decorated the walls of the Sinological Institute in the Leiden University Arsenaal Building. It is quite possible that they were acquired by J.J.L. Duyvendak (1889-1954), a Dutch Sinologist who worked as an interpreter at the Dutch embassy in Beijing from 1912 to 1918, before accepting a position at Leiden University in 1919. When the collections of the Sinological Institute were moved to the UBL Special Collections in 2016, the two paintings were re-evaluated and valued for their quality and authenticity. In 2021, they were restored and preserved by textile conservator Sjoukje Telleman. In this blog, I will seek to answer three questions: How did Zhou Peichun work? How historically accurate are the depicted scenes? And what is the value of this type of heritage for future generations? Show less
