Chinese mallow
1800
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1800
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Chinese mallow is a 1800 paint by Unknown, a Romanticism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows a Chinese mallow plant with delicate pink flowers and fuzzy green leaves. The artist used soft brushstrokes to capture each petal and leaf, making it look almost real. You can almost smell the freshness of the blooms. British explorers often brought back drawings of unfamiliar plants. This one helped people in England learn about Chinese flowers. It’s a quiet record of a plant that grew in southern China gardens. See it in person at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The rectangular watercolor depicts a Chinese mallow, or *jin kui*, with a central green stem bearing two flowers whose petals transition from pink to white. The flowers are shown against a plain background and mounted on brown-tinted paper. The work reflects 19th-century British interest in unfamiliar flora, often brought back by travelers as paintings rather than live specimens. It was accessioned into the collection in 1886, though its acquisition source remains unidentified.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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