Chinese craft on the Pearl River – a set of forty

'It was not ... until the end of the century that sets of paintings in a 'Company' style began to be made in Canton. As in India these paintings depicted themes and subjects which specially interested the European merchants in Canton and their families in the west. Exotic insects, birds, fruit and flowers had a special appeal. Sets of pictures were made of the many different types of boat which crowded the Pearl river. ...' (M. Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library, London, 1972, p.253). Following the receipt of paintings of Chinese plants for its Library, sets of 'drawings on Miscellaneous Subjects' were requested by the Court of Directors of the East India Company in 1805 and large sets of watercolours were dispatched from Canton in 1806, and are now in the India Office Library, and include two sets of 40 and 41 drawings of boats, comparable in sizes and subjects, albeit with earlier watermarks of 1794, to the present set (for which see M. Archer, Ibid, pp.255-56, nos 206 and 207).
The craft are depicted on the Pearl or Canton River and its associated waterways between Bocca Tigris and Canton, the picturesque river that took western supercargoes from Whampoa (Huangbu) Reach to the foreign factories at Canton. The watercolours include scenes taken at Whampoa and Canton, and along the waterway in between. The myriad craft include ferries, a dragon boat, rice and salt boats, a white cargo ship, chop boats for transporting merchants to Canton, a floating shop and floating brothel or flower boat, a duck boat, watermelon boats, and others.