Wason Collection of Chinese export watercolors.

Chinese export watercolors were painted in the port cities of China for sale to western customers in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Works were done in watercolor or gouache, initially on European papers, particularly paper produced by the English firm of J. Whatman, but later on pith"paper," produced from the pith of the Chinese plant tongcao (generally identified as Tetrapanax papyrifera). Many of the watercolors were done in sets such as trades, domestic interiors and gardens, boats, birds, mandarins, punishments, etc. Particularly popular were sets illustrating tea culture, the silk industry, and the making of porcelain since they explained the products that were being sent to the west. The watercolors were painted in workshops, using mass production techniques, so that there may be more than one version of the same "original." The colors used were those common in Chinese painting, but there is a clear tendency for primary colors to predominate later in the 19th century, particularly on the pith paper paintings. They may have originally been sold in loose paper bindings, but were frequently rebound in Europe in more elaborate leather bindings.