Dear All,

I seek information on a booklet of watercolors by Zhou Pei Chun (Chou
Pai Chu'en or Zhou Peichun, dates unknown) which registers and preserves
in delicate design on laid paper various street shop symbols found in
Peking, China, before the Revolution. This is thought to be painted
circa 1860. It is an 18-page booklet, 10 by 13 inches, containing two to
six calls per page. Each symbol is labeled in Pin yan and each page is
stamped with Zhou Pei Chun's own red seal. The calls include a pawn
shop, lamp store, tea house, hat shop, saddle store, bakery, bath house,
military sabre shop, tobacco store, and more. Each call is done in
lively colors and suggests that quite an artistic splendor hung along
the streets of Peking to inform and beckon shoppers about what lay
inside shops. In their urban infrastructure, the myriad street calls
heralded commerce through art--transcribing their wares and services
into art which, itself, created one street art gallery after another and
surely gave added vitality to the shopping, or even just the strolling,
experience.

The provenance of this item is established by Anna Granger's diary
reference, as follows: "May 15[, 1930, Peking, China]... Walter
[Granger] & I went to hear a lecture by a Chinese on Street Calls of
Peking at the Art Institute (source: The Granger Papers Project)."

During the mid-1800s, Zhou Pei Chun is known to have also painted a
similarly-sized booklet of Peking court costumes and rank insignias of
the military officials in the Ch'ing Dynasty. This is entitled "A
Mandarin Receiving an Embassy of European Diplomats at His Court." Last
I knew, this was stored at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem,
Massachusetts.

If anyone can add to my knowledge and understanding of this item and the
artist, I would greatly appreicate it.

Thanks,

Vin Morgan

Vincent L. Morgan
Managing Director, The Granger Papers Project
http://users.rcn.com/granger.nh.ultranet