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Lot Essay
This view, painted on a grand scale, was presumably commissioned by one of the leading western traders in Canton. It depicts the waterfront, warehouses and folly forts on the opposite shore from the Hongs of the western sector at Canton, the biggest of all the Treaty Ports. While the Westerners had been restricted to their concessions (the 'Thirteen Factories' area) on the north shore, they had always been allowed to cross over to Honam. A few western merchants rented godowns on the waterfront (where neighbours included such distinguished Hong merchants as Howqua) before the right for westerners to trade here was officially conceded under threat from the advance of British armed forces in 1847. This waterfront would later become the temporary trading area for western merchants after the Great Fire of 1856 until 1858, when Shamian, a reclaimed island a few hundred yards upriver, supplanted Honam as the new business and residential area.
Less picturesque than the opposite waterfront, Honam was rarely depicted, and, as here, the prolific shipping on the river tends to take centre stage in such views. The vessels depicted here include groups of 'flower-boats' moored abreast (so their mostly Chinese clientele could walk from one to another), the distinctive floating brothels with their lattice screens. The American merchant William Hunter founded the Canton Regatta Club in 1837 and regattas on the river became a common sport, watched by crowds moored on the Honam banks. By century's end the river here would have a floating population of over 100,000 souls.
There is a variant of similar size (paired with a view taken looking in the opposite direction, to Canton) by an unknown Chinese hand in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC1786).
Less picturesque than the opposite waterfront, Honam was rarely depicted, and, as here, the prolific shipping on the river tends to take centre stage in such views. The vessels depicted here include groups of 'flower-boats' moored abreast (so their mostly Chinese clientele could walk from one to another), the distinctive floating brothels with their lattice screens. The American merchant William Hunter founded the Canton Regatta Club in 1837 and regattas on the river became a common sport, watched by crowds moored on the Honam banks. By century's end the river here would have a floating population of over 100,000 souls.
There is a variant of similar size (paired with a view taken looking in the opposite direction, to Canton) by an unknown Chinese hand in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC1786).