Lot Essay
'The prefecture of Jiujiang' (literally 'nine rivers') is a town on the Yangtze river a day's journey upstream from Nanjing. It is the port for travellers up to the famous mountain resort of Lushan, a favourite among the Western residents of Shanghai in the nineteenth century, which explains the unusual buildings depicted on this plate. European holiday-makers in Jiujiang and Lushan were supplanted by the wealthy and powerful of Republican China, and later on by the rulers of the Communist Party.