Hand screen

This hand screen, one of a pair (1961.0892.002), was a type of fan made for fashionable consumption in Paris or London and included unique, hand-colored engravings on the presentation panel. Derived from a series of drawings by French artist Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728-1808), the engraved scene presents racial stereotypes drawn from the European imagination of China and the East in the eighteenth century. This degrading depiction of Chinese children at play points to the proliferation of visual material made by and for Euro-Atlantic audiences that capitalized on the othering of Chinese peoples and their histories.