Man Selling Salted Cabbage
1790
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1790
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Man Selling Salted Cabbage is a 1790 paint by Puqua, a Patna School of Painting work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
A person in a wide-brimmed hat and loose clothes is bending over a woven basket. They’re pulling something green and leafy from the basket with one hand while pushing a wooden pole with a bucket on the end. The background is plain white, so the focus is on the person and their simple tools. The artist used soft shading to show light and shadow, giving the scene a calm feel. Notice how the person’s face is slightly blurred, which makes them look more like a real person than a stiff drawing. Look up chiaroscuro to see how artists use light and shadow like this.
A rectangular watercolour painting from 1790 by Puqua depicts a man bent over a basket filled with water, removing salted cabbage from it, with a bucket visible to the right. The work is part of a set of 100 paintings illustrating various trades and occupations in Canton. It was acquired from Parsons & Sons and entered the collection in 1898, as recorded in the Asia Department registers during a 2022 provenance research project.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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