Man Pounding Rice
1790
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1790
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Man Pounding Rice is a 1790 paint by Puqua, a Patna School of Painting work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
A bald man in a loose, blue-gray robe is bending over a wooden frame. He’s holding a long wooden tool and pressing down on a round, woven basket. The frame looks like a simple machine for crushing something inside the basket. The basket is likely for pounding rice, a common task in many cultures. The artist’s focus on everyday work shows how ordinary life could be interesting. Check out the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more paintings like this.
A rectangular watercolour painting titled *Man Pounding Rice* by Puqua, dated 1790, depicts a central figure in grey standing on a wooden rice-pounding structure. It is part of a set of 100 works illustrating various trades and occupations in Canton. The painting was acquired from Parsons & Sons and accessioned in 1898, with this provenance recorded during a 2022 research project in the Asia Department registers.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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