A Chinese silk waistcoat with embroidered panels illustrating paddle-steamers on the front and back, the ivory silk panels set with flowers and other motifs embroidered in gold thread, within decorative borders.

'The major staples of the trade ... other than tea, were silk and nankeens. It was for these magnificent fabrics that the traders haunted the shops and hongs of the silk merchants at Canton, and the yardage exported to America ran into hundreds of thousands every year. ... Hundreds of costumes found in historical museums on the eastern American seabord are made of China trade silks ‒ possibly the most frequently used fabric for fine garments in the first half of the 19th century. ... Gentlemen's waistcoats were either embroidered and sewn up or sent back to the West embroidered and uncut. Captain John Green's account books for the Empress of China [the first American ship to reach China in 1786] list under 'investments' for Joseph Barrell '24 silk waistcoats made pr. invoice $48 ...'' (Crossman, p.378). 'Embroidered vests' are among the China trade items specifically mentioned in the manifests of ships heading back to San Francisco in the Gold Rush years (for which see T.N.Layton, Gifts from the Celestial Kingdom: A Shipwrecked Cargo for Gold Rush California, Stanford, 2002, pp.64, 221).