Man Drilling Seed Pearls
1790
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1790
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Man Drilling Seed Pearls is a 1790 paint by Puqua, a Patna School of Painting work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows an older man sitting at a small wooden table. He’s wearing a green robe, white pants with purple stripes, and glasses. On the table sits a shallow bowl with something red inside. The man holds two sticks—one in each hand—and seems to be stirring or mixing the contents carefully. The bowl likely holds seeds, and the sticks might be tools for drilling tiny holes in them, possibly to make seed pearls. This was a real craft in some cultures, turning simple seeds into jewelry. Look up Puqua next to see more of this artist’s work.
The work is a rectangular watercolour painting from 1790 by Puqua, showing a man drilling seed pearls while wearing glasses. He secures the pearls in soft wood with a bordered frame and perforates them one by one using careful blows of a mallet. This piece is part of a set of 100 paintings depicting various trades and occupations in Canton. It was acquired from Parsons & Sons and entered the collection in 1898.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Your cart is empty
Explore artworks →
