Search Results:

<< Viewing Record 213 of 650 >>
View : Light Box | List View | Image List | Detailed
 


Culture:Chinese
Title:gouache: tobacco pressing and cutting
Date Made:ca. 1790
Type:Painting
Materials:paper, gouache
Place Made:China; Canton
Measurements:overall: 13 x 10 1/2 in.; 33.02 x 26.67 cm
Accession Number:  HD 2003.45
Credit Line:Gift of Amanda E. Lange
Museum Collection:  Historic Deerfield
2003-45t.jpg

Description:
Chinese gouache image of four men operating a rope clutch press, a device used primarily for pressing tobacco and making paper in browns, oranges, red, green, blue, pink, and white. The wooden press includes a horizontal press-beam that is pulled down on the tobacco with a rope and windlass; workmen turn the windlass by pulling down the long wooden levers. The man leaning over in the rear cuts or shreds tobacco with a sharp plane. A shopkeeper with well-stocked shelves of merchandise, including woven basket, bowls, storage jars and bottles, looks on from behind the sales counter. This image of tobacco pressing and cutting was probably part of an album of images related to Chinese occupations. Albums and individual images of professions proved popular for the Western market. Augustine Heard, a China trade merchant from Ipswich, Massachusetts, owned three albums of drawings, each containing 120 illustrations identifying the 360 professions. The tobacco cutter is typically included as one of the professions, although rarely did the illustration show the entire shop with the tobacco press. Farmers in Yanzhou in the Shandong Province began to plant tobacco in the mid-17th century; as smoking became widespread, the cultivation of tobacco in China rapidly expanded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Peasants dried the leaves in their households, then sold bundles of tobacco leaves to merchants who had them graded. The leaves either sold as "raw tobacco" to those smokers who preferred that form, or went for processing which involved removing ribs, shredding, and adding aromatic substances and oil. Shredding and pressing tobacco reduced its bulk, and rendered it ready for the long-distance trade.

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2003.45

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.

<< Viewing Record 213 of 650 >>