Negotiating art and commerce in William Alexander's illustrated books on China

Abstract

Images of China in the West are a fascinating and complex subject that has caught scholarly attention for many years. This thesis studies three illustrated books on China produced by William Alexander, English watercolorist and official draughtsman to the Macartney Embassy at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: An Authentic Account of the Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China (1798), The Costume of China (1805), and Picturesque Representation of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese (1814). Derived from a rich repertoire of onsite sketches and drawings that the artist made while en route, Alexander’s illustrations generated a more realistic and accurate portrayal of China than ever before and introduced new subject matter concerning political administration, economic activity, social structure, military force, nautical technology, and cultural life under Emperor Qianlong’s reign. Meanwhile, his books grew out of a dynamic cultural scene in London where new artistic forms, systems, institutions, and patronage were developed to meet the needs of a middle-class consumer society. With picturesque travel books turning into luxury commodities, artists, engravers, and publishers developed all kinds of graphic techniques and marketing strategies to increase the market appeal of their products. This thesis analyzes Alexander’s Costume of China in relation to earlier European books on China, to the traditions of costume books and street cries, and to contemporaneous travel books; it examines the book’s masterful use of aquatint printing and hand-coloring and compares it to the more formal and scientific approach of An Authentic Account as well as the less artistic and more commercial approach of Picturesque Representation. It also analyzes the audiences and publishers of all three books in detail to demonstrate how Alexander changed his methods of illustration to suit different readers and different economic needs. By considering Alexander’s three China books in relation to a larger culture of book reading and collecting in Georgian Britain, the thesis argues that his Costume of China achieved both artistic and commercial goals by creating images that were empirically accurate, aesthetically pleasing, and economically efficient. It had similar motifs and subjects based on direct observation as in An Authentic Account but replaced the latter’s grand landscape views and hardline engravings with more detailed and lighthearted vignettes rich in colors and tones. It also offered a greater thematic diversity and higher level of execution than Picturesque Representation by introducing buildings and boats into the representation of costume and custom and using sophisticated skills of framing, coloring, and shading. As a result, it successfully built an elite clientele ranging from royals and aristocrats to leading professionals of all major industries.