Chinese, Lady of Pekin, from Types of Nationalities (N240) issued by Kinney Bros. 1890

Editor: This is "Chinese, Lady of Pekin" from 1890, made by Kinney Bros. It looks like it was a print, probably included in a pack of tobacco. What strikes me is the kind of flattened perspective, the way everything's outlined. What do you make of it? Curator: Well, firstly, my mind wanders to how our understanding of ‘types of nationalities’ has thankfully, or at least ideally, changed quite drastically since this piece. The overt simplicity of it seems unsettling now. Thinking of this as something that might have popped out of a tobacco packet is remarkable. What sort of oddity could be used as a selling point today? What thoughts come to mind regarding Ukiyo-e when viewing the artwork? Editor: I do get the Ukiyo-e reference in the flattened perspective and outlined figures but, knowing it was made by a tobacco company, there is, like you said, something almost uncomfortably simplistic about how she is presented, this sort of 'exotic other' to be collected, along with your tobacco. Curator: Exactly! It reduces her essence to a marketable ‘type.’ And what about those colours, that strange flatness sitting next to little detailed floral explosions in her hair… Where is the artist truly 'seeing', and what are they failing to consider in what they create, what does this failure say about their culture? The detail of dress juxtaposed with those blocky almost caricature facial characteristics... do we see Orientalism clashing with documentary desire here, a desire to faithfully recreate reality as experienced by those of the Western gaze? Editor: It's definitely made me rethink how these images were originally used and the sort of message they were sending. You have broadened my appreciation of the subject in question here, its implications on history itself. Curator: Indeed. Looking closer can sometimes reveal worlds we’d rather not acknowledge, no? Thanks for bringing your fresh eyes, I have now re-analysed its subject position.