.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The present picture is one of a series of large panoramic views of the two banks of the Pearl River at Canton which were produced by Youqua and his studio at Canton in and around 1846-47. The views of the Canton waterfront on the north bank (showing the western factories rebuilt after the fires of 1842 and 1843) and of the south bank (showing the island of Honam) were probably originally conceived as companion pictures, to be hung together. Two such companions are in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC1785-6) and two are in the Hong Kong Museum of Art (AH2018.0003.001 and 002), for which see Merchants and Mariners, Historical pictures by Chinese and Western arts 1750-1970, Martyn Gregory, Catalogue 98, 2018-19, pp.98-103, nos 98-9). For another close variant of the Honam view, of similar size, see Christie’s London, 12 July 2012, lot 120 (£175,250). For another of Youqua’s Canton views, see the picture in the Guangdong Provincial Museum, Guangzhou, which bears the artist’s trade label (P. Conner, The Hongs of Canton, London, 2009, pp.182-3, 7.10) The view depicts the waterfront on the opposite shore from the Hongs of the western sector at Canton, the biggest of all the Chinese Treaty Ports. While the western merchants had been restricted to their concessions (the 'Thirteen Factories' area) on the north shore, they had always been allowed to cross over to Honam to visit the ‘Ocean Banner’ temple complex and gardens and to dine with the Hong merchants in their palatial homes. A few western merchants rented godowns on the waterfront (where neighbours included such distinguished Hong merchants as Howqua) before the right for westerners to trade and reside here was officially conceded by the Cantonese authorities under threat from the advance of British armed forces in April 1847. This new concession probably prompted demand from the western residents for the Honam views, and for Youqua and his studio to begin work that year on these companion pictures. Less picturesque than the opposite waterfront, Honam was rarely depicted in export art prior to 1847, and, as here, the prolific shipping on the river tends to take centre stage in such views. The vessels depicted here are virtually all Chinese craft, indicating that the view was probably painted early in the year, before the presence of British naval ships which began to moor off the hongs later in 1847, in defiance of the Chinese regulations. The craft here include groups of 'flower-boats' moored abreast (so their Chinese clientele could walk from one to another), the distinctive floating brothels with their lattice screens. The Honam waterfront would later become the temporary trading area for western merchants after the Great Fire of 1856, until 1858, when Shamian, a reclaimed island a few hundred yards upriver, on the north shore, supplanted Honam as the new business and residential area.