This painting bears close comparison to an example by Spoilum in the Peabody Museum, Salem, illustrated by Carl Crossman, Decorative Arts of the China Trade, London, 1991, p. 50, pl. 13. Not only are they very close in size, but both appear to be painted on primed cloth. The sitter in the Peabody painting is identified as the silk merchant Eshing, and the present example appears to be of the same merchant. The Peabody painting was known to have been painted before 1809 and was an early gift to the East India Marine Society, the forerunner to the Peabody Museum