WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1767-1811)

STUDY OF AN ARMOURED CHINESE SOLDIER HOLDING A FLINTLOCK MUSKET
Indistinctly inscribed & numbered u.m.
Watercolour over black chalk on buff wove paper
21 x 14.3 xm
 
 
PROVENANCE:
William Beckford (1760-1844);
The Earl of Derby (by repute)
 
LITERATURE:
Engraved for William Alexander's Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese, London (1814), pl. 13
 
 
 
 
In 1792, Alexander was appointed as one of the draughtsmen to the Macartney Embassy to China. He accompanied the Earl of Macartney to Peking where he made drawings for the plates which accompanied Sir George Stauntons account of the embassy, published in 1797.

In 1805 he published The Costume of China, illustrated by 48 coloured engravings, after his travels to China with The Earl of Macartney. The work was so well-received that in 1814 he published another book titled Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese, illustrated in fifty colored engravings, with descriptions. This publication was re-issued over the next twenty years in various languages including French.