Jieziyuan Huazhuan (芥子園畵傳, The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting) was a representative art book series of the Qing period that included a series of three art books each featuring landscape, the Four Gracious Plants, and flora and fauna. In the 19th century, a number of figure painting manual books appeared and claimed to be the fourth volume of the series. Figure paintings of various subjects became a popular trend in the late Qing period, and the rising demand for figure paintings led to need for an art book dedicated to the genre. It is estimated that the figure painting manual books were published borrowing the name of Jieziyuan Huazhuan in consideration of the fact that the original series did not include figure paintings. The Qing period also saw the production of figure prints in large quantities. A great number of figure painting manual books for appreciation purposes were published using prevalent figure images such as Líng Liàn Gé Gōngchén Tú ( 凌練 閣功臣 圖), Wú Shuāng Pǔ (無雙譜), Wǎn Xiào Táng Huà Chuán ( 晩笑堂畵傳), and Bǎi Měi Xīn Yǒng Túpǔ (百美新詠圖譜), some of which were produced as a reference manual for art production, as with the fourth volume of Jieziyuan Huazhuan . Among books commonly referred to as the fourth volume of Jieziyuan Huazhuan, publications of 1818 and 1897 are the most well-known. The publications were composed of texts in the beginning explaining the theories and techniques of figure painting production and examples of figure paintings by famous artists from previous and contemporary generations. Since these publications included excerpts from existing famous print books or replica of celebrated paintings, they were viewed not only as painting manuals but also replica books of celebrated paintings, and also demonstrate trends in the genre of figure painting and practices in printmaking at that time.