Valparaiso from the south east with French, Danish, Chilean and American shipping offshore

A rare view of the Chilean port of Valparaiso by a Chinese artist, the port depicted close to mid-century when it began to thrive, supplying the Californian Gold Rush (1848-1858). A duplicate was with Thomas Coulborn & Sons (London) in 2017, with provenance from an American China Trader, Captain Hall Jackson Tibbits (1797-1872), suggesting these may both be works by an export artist in Canton working from another as yet unidentified painting or print, or possibly by an itinerant Chinese artist in Valparaiso. Valparaiso was a picturesque subject for artists, sitting like an amphitheatre on the Pacific coast. It was most famously painted by the German romantic artist Johann Moritz Rugendas in the 1830s and 1840s, in a series of commissions which share the format of the present picture, albeit his views taken from the old and new Santiago roads looking in the opposite direction. Rugendas's views looking north, as here, are mostly taken from a slightly lower viewpoint, the 'Caleta El Membrillo.'
The port of Valparaiso grew quickly after Chile won independence from Spain in 1818 and the country opened to international trade. It was the stopover for shipping rounding the Horn and transiting the Straits of Magellan, the export hub for Chile's vast copper deposits, and later became the main supply centre for the Californian Gold Rush (1848-1858). As the main port of Chile and the west coast of America, it thrived until the Panama canal opened in 1914.