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Lot Essay
This view with exceptional detail to the growing city's buildings along the waterfront, the softly rendered peaks behind without the signal station erected in 1861, but showing what is probably Government House (1855.) At far left, on East Point, is probably Jardine Matheson; prominent at center is St. John's Cathedral (1849.) British, French and Dutch flags fly in the city, and in the crowded waters three-masted British and American ships are anchored.
After the 1843 Treaty of Nanking formally ceded Hong Kong to the British it became more than ever a center of Western activity in China. P. Connor, writing in Views of the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1996, said "As the fortunes of Macau waned in the middle years of the nineteenth century, so did those of Hong Kong prosper."
After the 1843 Treaty of Nanking formally ceded Hong Kong to the British it became more than ever a center of Western activity in China. P. Connor, writing in Views of the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1996, said "As the fortunes of Macau waned in the middle years of the nineteenth century, so did those of Hong Kong prosper."