Title
[View on the banks of the River Peiho] / WA f.
Creator
Alexander, William, 1767-1816, artist.
Publication details
[1793]
Physical details
1 drawing : watercolour ; sheet 32.8 x 47.9 cm, on support 38.6 x 54.1 cm
Description
Figures sitting on the banks of the Hai River, with man pushing a barge in the foreground and three men beating a fourth with bamboo canes, watched by a crowd outside city-walls in the background. Signed with initials at bottom right and annotated in pencil on verso: 'Banks of the River. Figures looking at the Ambassador's vessels. Punishment of Bambooing is executed in the Back Ground'. Pasted on mount with washlines.
Place
Hebei Sheng (China)
Additional information
Described as 'A Group of figures on an eminence assembled together to see the Embassador pass during which a punishment of the bamboo is inflicted. The indifference of some of the Bye-standers contrasted with the humiliating postures of others, on this occasion, and the women peeping over the walls that enclose their buildings, are highly characteristic' in manuscript notes bound with the drawings. Old record titled 'A colored view on the banks of the river Peiho [in Hebei Province] "with many figures looking at the Ambassador's [Earl of Macartney] effects," etc.; drawn by W. Alexander [in August, 1793]'. Many views in this series were reproduced in Sir George Staunton's Narrative of the Embassy, published in 1797.
Other persons
Macartney, George Macartney, Earl, 1737-1806, patron.
Shelfmark
Maps 8 TAB.c.8.1.