A Foot soldier

This painting is part of a group depicting different costumes worn by Chinese men and women in the early 19th century. This one shows a foot soldier with his rifle on his shoulder. At the time foot soldiers were mostly drawn from natives of the Guangxi province, and as a result foot soldiers were commonly referred to as 'Guangxi'. Europeans were fascinated by Chinese dresses and hairstyles which were markedly different from their own, and paintings such as this were mass-produced as souvenir items.