Painting of women buying cloth, from a set of 15 scenes on silk manufacture and trade. Depicting a domestic scene of three women standing in an open pavilion inspecting cloth; to their right two women chatting, one with several rolls of cloth under her arm. Watercolour and ink on paper. Artist unknown. Copied after Jiao Bingzhen's rendition of 'Gengzhitu', Illustrations of Tilling and Weaving. Jiao Bingzhen was a court artist who worked 1680 - 1720.
Sets of paintings depicting silk manufacture were popular souvenirs bought by European or American sea captains and merchants in the 19th century, as the images explained the making of silk that was exported to the West.
