Antique Print of a Chinese Fair with Rotating Wheels and Acrobat, 1815

This is an original hand colored copper engraving, dated 1815, from Giulio Ferrario's Le Costume Ancien et Moderne (ancient and modern costume), showing Chinese fairground amusements. The plate has no engraved title or caption.

A crowd in long robes of yellow, pink, green and blue stands with their backs to the viewer across the foreground, one figure wrapped in a shaggy fur coat. Above them rise two great spoked wheels in timber frames, with figures in red and yellow clinging to their rims, set beside two tall towers with pagoda style roofs. Two fringed canopies stand in front of the wheels, and small wheels on poles above them turn with further figures hanging from their spokes. At the right a very tall pole, braced by a rope, carries a small platform at its top on which a performer crouches, with a second platform partway up. Below it a group of men in red hats sit on the ground beside a basin, and arrows and a hat lie on the ground near the foot of the pole. Further spectators stand in the distance beside a tripod of poles.

The plate number "73" is engraved at the upper right above the border, and the engraver signed below the border at the lower left: "G. Zancon inci." A small round blind stamp is pressed at the lower right corner of the plate mark, and an oval blind stamp sits in the lower right margin.

The plate comes from Le Costume Ancien et Moderne by Giulio Ferrario (1767 to 1847), a Milanese scholar and publisher. The work was a multi-volume illustrated survey of the customs of the peoples of the world, issued in parts in Italian and in French. The part wrapper issued with these plates closes with the imprint "MILAN, DE L'IMPRIMERIE DE L'EDITEUR, MDCCCXV" (Milan, from the publisher's press, 1815).

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. Foxing over much of the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right corner. Several larger brown marks.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.