A Chinese lady at Bateman’s

Bateman‘s in the village of Burwash, East Sussex is the grand old (originally Jacobean) home of Rudyard Kipling. the views of the Sussex countryside are delightful and it is well maintained courtesy of the National Trust. There is also a lot of Kipling-memorabilia all around, much of it Chinese or Chinoiserie. These items include a Chinese pen-case and Tibetan ghost-dagger and a set of Chinese porcelain glazed with the East India Company crest (once noted in a 1987 piece for the NY Times). Rather unremarkable but still interesting is this portrait of a Chinese lady that is on the wall beside Kipling’s former bed… perhaps interesting that he chose this to be in his bedroom where he would see it everyday…