Arts

THE CHINESE PAINTING COLLECTION OF THE FORMER LUÍS DE CAMÕES MUSEUM

Luís Sá Cunha

RC is proud to present a selection of Chinese paintings from the Museu Luís de Camões (Luís de Camões Museum) in Macao. Published for the first time in colour this selection is been brought to light after a considerable number of years. These pictorial treasures from the valuable Chinese heritage of the former Museum have remained long in store obliged by the recent tribulations of the Museum, its being moved from its romantic premises at Casa Garden and being installed in the future Centro Cultural de Macau (Macao Cultural Centre) - to safekeep the frail paintings in controlled climacteric conditions that prevented their temporary display.

In virtue of their forthcoming permanent exhibition to the public at large, several paintings are presently under restoration and conditioning, which has enabled a photographic preview. Once they hang in the Macao Cultural Centre they will attest to the valuable artistic heritage of the new Museum complex, not only for the Territory and China but for all art lovers, connoisseurs and Oriental scholars worldwide. The Luís de Camões Museum collection of Shiwan ceramics is by far the biggest and most important of all China, and their Guangdong paintings are second best only to those of the Art Gallery of the Institute of Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

This collection of Guangdong paintings comprises more than two-hundred works by forty-three artists active during the Ming [1368-1644] and Qing [1644-1912] dynasties in this province of south China. The collection was lovingly and expertly enlarged over decades by the Portuguese philosopher and sinologist Manuel da Silva Mendes [o1876] before being acquired complete by the Luís de Camões Museum in 1931, following the death of its owner.

By and large, more than half of the artists represented in the former Silva Mendes collection are acclaimed master painters and calligraphers of the Qing period. There are also a number of important examples from late Ming scholars and nineteenth century works of the so-called Shanghai School.

The reprint of Helen Chan and Zhuang Shen's papers on the Museum's Chinese paintings enables a cultural and aesthetical contextualisation of the presently illustrated examples. These two essays were written for the Centre of Asian Studies of the University the Hong Kong under the guidance and assistance of Luís Gonzaga Gomes [°1907-†l976], then curator of the Luís de Camões Museum. They remain the most authoritative appraisals of this unique heritage of Chinese pictorial refinement.

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