The Kunsthal Rotterdam is staging a survey of Chinese erotic art this September. Forbidden in China. these rare works come from the private collection of Dutchman Ferry Bertholet. who brought them back from his Asian travels. The 500 exhibits range from paintings and drawings to extremely rare paintings on glass. exquisitely worked opium pipes and attributes for binding women's feet. a significant ritual in Chinese lovemaking.
Rooted in Antiquity. erotic art is an important aspect of Chinas cultural heritage. Its heyday was in the late Ming period, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Leading Chinese artists have contributed to the genre. Although the paintings and drawings. some of them captioned. were made under the pretext of providing instruction for shy or inexperienced young people. their prime function is clearly sexual arousal. Even so. Chinese erotica do more than just titillate - they are a source of great aesthetic pleasure too. Beauty and harmony are paramount, and supplementary details have a deeper symbolic meaning: the lotus blossom, for instance. stands for purity and a gnarled tree-trunk for health and longevity.

Spring Palace Paintings
The Chinese erotic paintings and drawings are known as 'Spring Palace Paintings'. The word 'Spring' refers to the archaic springtime rituals during which girls and boys. separated by a brook, sang love-songs to each other. Later, when love-making had become part of refined imperial court culture. the word 'palace' was added as an allusion to the emperors residence. Erotic art developed concurrently with the rise of the rich mercantile cities of southern China from the 10th century on. Suchow. Hangchow and Quangchow were among the most sophisticated places in the world. The golden age of Chinese erotic art coincided with the end of the Ming period (1368-1644). when a relative liberal policy promoted the development of art and science. The quality of the works rose sharply. and artists began to sign their pictures. Later periods often harked back to this heyday.

The Bertholet collection
After graduating from art school, Ferdinand M. Bertholet (Amsterdam 1952) traveled extensively in Asia. During one of his journeys he came across an album of Chinese erotic pictures at a Hong Kong antique dealer's. He was struck by the subtly romantic expression and the harmonious compositions and colour schemes. and began to actively collect high-quality erotic art and porcelains. Despite the strict censorship exercised by the Chinese regime. he managed to amass a large number of pieces. The result is the biggest collection of Chinese erotica in the western world. comprising works dating from the Ming period to the Fourth of May Movement of 1919.