The Bund at Shanghai

Shanghai was formally opened to British trade with the ratification of the Treaty of Nanking which ended the first Opium War in 1843, and development of the Bund began quickly. The pace of development can be tracked in Chinese export paintings by Chow Kwa and his contemporaries active in the 1850s and 1860s, before the first photographers begin to record the site in long folding panoramas in the 1880s. This colourful panorama of the Bund is taken from Pudong across the Huangpu river, and portrays the mile of buildings on the opposite embanked quayside. The view ranges from the French concession and Bund on the extreme left (marked by the flying tricolour) to the British Consulate on the extreme right (marked by the flying Union Jack). The Portuguese flag flies above the Dent, Beale & Co premises to the right of the newly renovated red Customs House (Thomas Chay Beale, Dent's partner, was appointed Consul for Portugal at Shanghai in 1851). The crowded shipping on the river includes French, Austrian, Dutch, American, Portuguese and British craft, Chinese junks, tanka boats, sampans and barges.