A Theater in Mukden, Manchuria

Joseph Lindon Smith painted A Theater in Mukden, Manchuria when he was on a 6 month tour of Asia with the art collector and design theorist Denman Waldo Ross. They stayed in Mukden, now Shenyang, for three days and attended the theater one evening.

Joseph had a lifelong love of performance art and produced pageants for civic events, fundraisers, and private parties hosted by wealthy families in Boston, Newport, and New York. He was likely inspired to paint the Chinese opera in Mukden to help preserve his memory of the evening so he could incorporate aspects of the production into his own performances.  

The composition is painted from the perspective of a balcony box and is focused on the vibrant interior architecture and the attentive audience.  With only a few brushstrokes, Smith captures the elaborate costumes and headdresses of the three actors on the stage who were likely telling a story from a historical novel about a political or military struggle. The acting would have been punctuated by traditional Chinese string and percussion instruments—creating a true multisensory experience.

Like her friend Joseph Lindon Smith, Isabella had a love of performance art and Chinese culture—she traveled to China in 1883-84.