(CHINA) Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming Min River Foochow

Sale 2610 - Lot 327

Price Realized: $ 2,750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000

(CHINA.) Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming. Min River, Foochow, Pirate's Village Ahn Ing Kay. Ink and watercolor on heavy drawing stock, signed and dated lower right. 12 3/4x26 1/4 inches sheet size; minor soiling and edge wear. China, March 12, 1879

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Additional Details

Fine watercolor sketch of sampans and larger sailing vessels on the Min River near Fuzhou by Victorian travel author/artist Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming.

"Min River / Foochow / Pirate's Village Ahn Ing Kay / near here there are said to be 300 houses addicted to robbing boats. CF. Gordon Cumming, March 12th 1879".

The present drawing was not reproduced as such in Cumming's 1886 "Wanderings in China" however pages 153-157 in volume one of that work are devoted to her March 12, 1879 journal recording in which she describes her experiences of the day relating to this particular spot on the river:

"...I was anxious to see something of Ahn-Ing-Kay, an exceedingly picturesque village which had attracted our notice on the way up by its many gabled houses, bearing so strange a resemblance to old houses in Chester. There are the same crossbeams of blackwood, filled in with white stone or plaster, but the grey tiled roofs assumed curves undreamt of by English builders, whether ancient or modern. These houses, which are two and three storeys high, stand high along the river's broken bank, which here, as at many other villages, is crowned with noble old banyan trees, with great twisted stems and far-spreading roots.

...Supposing we were to spend the night here, we only returned to the boat at dusk, but found the boatmen in a fever of impatience, begging us to let them start at once, as this village bears such an evil reputation that no boat dares stay there after dusk! They affirm that the inmates of three hundred houses in this and the neighbouring villages are known to be simply pirates; in short, they insisted on starting instantly, which we accordingly did. The men rowed and poled for a couple of hours in the starlight, and then anchored in a quiet backwater at Min-Ching, where many other boats had already congregated for the night, and where we know we may now sleep securely".