Lot Essay
The Battle of Foochow was the major event of a short-lived though fascinating little colonial war between France and China.
French colonial ambitions in South East Asia during the second half of the nineteenth century had come to a head in 1883 after a dispute over sovereignty in Tonquin. Diplomacy having failed, Admiral Courbet, the French Far East Colonel in Chief, decided to take the offensive and mount an attack on the Chinese fleet lying in the Pagoda Roads at Foochow. The battle took place on 23 August 1884 and although the Chinese fought tenaciously under their commander Admiral Ting, the loss of their flagship at the outset was swiftly followed by the destruction of their entire fleet with heavy loss of life. The whole affair was over in barely half an hour, the victory being so overwhelming that the French fleet was able to bombard and disable the massive arsenal at Foochow the next day. More French successes were to follow, with the result that China sued for peace which was concluded in June 1885
A detailed account of the battle with diagrams is published in Le Monde Illustre, August 1884, p.282-5.
A pendant to the picture titled Prise du fort de la Pagode à Fou-tcheou signed by the artist and dated 1884, hangs in the Musée de la Marine in Paris. There are no other records of the artist and his Christian name is unknown
French colonial ambitions in South East Asia during the second half of the nineteenth century had come to a head in 1883 after a dispute over sovereignty in Tonquin. Diplomacy having failed, Admiral Courbet, the French Far East Colonel in Chief, decided to take the offensive and mount an attack on the Chinese fleet lying in the Pagoda Roads at Foochow. The battle took place on 23 August 1884 and although the Chinese fought tenaciously under their commander Admiral Ting, the loss of their flagship at the outset was swiftly followed by the destruction of their entire fleet with heavy loss of life. The whole affair was over in barely half an hour, the victory being so overwhelming that the French fleet was able to bombard and disable the massive arsenal at Foochow the next day. More French successes were to follow, with the result that China sued for peace which was concluded in June 1885
A detailed account of the battle with diagrams is published in Le Monde Illustre, August 1884, p.282-5.
A pendant to the picture titled Prise du fort de la Pagode à Fou-tcheou signed by the artist and dated 1884, hangs in the Musée de la Marine in Paris. There are no other records of the artist and his Christian name is unknown