Yi xiang Zhongguo: 香港中文大學圖書館藏通草紙畫

Abstract

"Pith paper watercolours were mainly produced in Guangzhou in the 19th century, referring to the little pictures created by local painters, who depicted various topics about China on sheets of pith paper with watercolours. These little pictures were sold to the western traders in Guangzhou at that time. Different from the ordinary paper, pith paper is not made of the pulp of wood but cut directly from the white inner spongy tissue of a small tree called Tetrapanax papyrifera or Aralia papyrifera (native in regions such as Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Taiwan). After extraction, the stick of pith was placed on a ceramic or glass base-plate and cut with a knife by rolling it along the plate. In other words, pith paper was cut sheet by sheet. Due to its limited size, it was not easy to cut large sheets of pith, therefore pith paper would usually measure not more than twelve inches by eight"-- Foreword, Ching May Bo (page xi).