Album leaf painted with a funeral scene depicting a corpse covered in a pink blanket with blue embroidery, lying on a mat supported by two wooden benches. Two male and four female relatives are all dressed in white, a symbolic colour of death, each group kneeling on a mat; the men are to the left of the painting, and the women to the right. An oil lamp, candles, joss sticks, and food offering (three buns in a blue and white bowl) are placed in front of the corpse. A musician plays cymbals during the ceremony. Watercolour and ink on pith. Artist unknown.
From an album entitled ‘A Chinese Mandarin, Life from the Cradle to the Grave’, brought from Shanghai by Capt. Geo. F. Thomas, of the China Tea Clipper ‘Omba’, which docked at Dover in 1866.
