Glass painting

This painting was done on the back of a sheet of glass. The viewer sees the picture by looking through the glass, so the artist - who works only on the back of it - has to paint everything in reverse.

The remarkably romantic setting and the man and woman in Chinese dress depicted here are clearly intended to appeal to Western taste. Europeans visiting China often bought such 'reverse glass painting' because it was ingenious and exotic. The glass, however, was not locally made and would have been imported from Europe.