The "Renting Collection Courtyard" is from the "class education museum" in Dayi County Sichuang Province. The collection depicts the story of a struggling lower class forced to pay dues to a tyrant landowner, Wencai Liu, before 1949. These paintings were rendered from clay figurines also depicting the same story, and hand-painted onto porcelain vases.
A total distortion of a folk legend, the fabricated stories of rent collection and water dungeons told in the drama "Liu Wencai" were both used as tools to "educate" people to hate landlords. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Communist party commonly used scare tactics such as this to demonize their enemies.
According to Communist Propaganda, Wencai Liu relied on the regime of the Kuomintang to act cruelly to the people under his care, some even dared to call him "Hades."
The "Renting Collection Courtyard" is a sixteen piece set. Each piece is 44 cm. high with a 16 cm diameter and features an illustrative mural on one side with the corresponding story on the reverse. Drawn and designed by artist, Zhang Lan, who specialized in story artwork like this, his company, Jingdeizhen City Porcelain Research Institute, specially made this collection for the Jingdeizhen "class clash education museum" museum.
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