Missionary scroll

A scroll in the format of Chinese art paintings, consisting of three wood engravings with Roman Catholic content pasted on silk, testifying to the curious intellectual and artistic interchange between Europe and Asia. In form and material, the scroll follows the traditional techniques of Chinese scroll paintings. However, only the paper back of the object is monolithic (uniform), while the front is composed of individual pieces of paper and silk that have been precisely folded and glued together. Also, the three images are not printed on a single piece of paper, but the top one is on one piece and the lower two on another piece of paper. The silk is also pasted in strips only at the edges. Between the backing paper and the silk ribbon, a dark red paper ribbon is glued to the two outer edges, forming the final edge of the scroll on the left and right. On the upper edge is attached a semi-circular wooden batten with a string for hanging, and there is a round wooden batten on the lower edge.

The images, printed with wooden blocks and then meticulously hand-painted, bear the distinctive signature of the Jesuit workshops on the outskirts of Shanghai in the missionary complex. They were produced shortly after the founding of the Tushanwan workshops based on the images designed by Jesuit Henry Vasseur (1828–1899), a painting teacher there. The scroll consists of three separate images printed using the wood block technique and painted by hand. The first, “The Joy of Heaven” (tian tang zhi le 天堂之樂), depicts a scene of “all the saints” and shows the Holy Trinity, the Holy Mary, angels, and a choir of saints, and also Chinese believers. The second is a genre painting of the “death of the just” (mort du juste) and shows the interior of the house where a dying man is lying on the bed. The third painting, titled “Purgatory, with good deeds we can atone for sins” (lian zui zhi suo shan gong ke shu 煉罪之所善功可贖) shows people in flames, approached by angels, and scenes of gradual release from purgatory. (HM)