清十八世紀 《姑蘇繁華圖》設色紙本

ink and colour on paper, depicting the Imperial textile workshop in Jiangsu shipping the textile out, detailed with numerous figures of officials and workers, bridges, temples and halls, all places carefully denominated including the Yuanmen gate, the Beijin and the Zhuqing bridges, the Hushu ge and Wenchang ge pavilions, the da Wang Miao temple, the tax bureau or even the Hangyin taverna, the scroll impressed with two illegible seals to the bottom left

The painting is executed on paper and laid down on canvas. There are multiple creases and losses to the pigments throughout as visible on the photo. There is a 1.5 cm hole to the lower right corner and tears along the edges. The pigments are rather faded and the paper is toned. The painting is a fragment of a much longer scrolls. The two seals at the bottom left corner could indicate that it has been trimmed in its current format, at least on the left, for a certain period of time.
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