19th C. Chinese Pith Painting Portrait of Woman with Opium Pipe physiology and how the cup sits

and how the cup sits on it like on a pedestal

great structural condition and heavy for his size

Another antique stereoview that I like for the geometries and almost Escher-esque sense of infinite continuum

though I might want to keep it out all of the time

19th C. Chinese Pith Painting Portrait of Woman with Opium Pipe physiology and how the cup sitsThis is a Cantonese gouache painting on pith, mounted to good weight backing paper (blue ribbon runs around the perimeter of the pith paper and is what holds the painting to the larger backing paper), which I believe would originally have been housed in a portfolio containing a set of six or twelve, together portraying a selection of court figures in fine dress, perhaps the emperor and empress, too. I love this woman for the opium pipe in her hands,