Lot Essay
Thomas Daniell and his young nephew William visited China twice: on their way to India in 1785, and on their return to England from India in 1793. The first leg of their passage to Calcutta in 1785 was made on the Indiaman Atlas which left them at Whampoa in August 1785. They remained in China, visiting Macao and Canton, before taking a coasting vessel to Calcutta in the spring of 1786. They returned to China, after their famous tour of India, in 1793, seeking a safe passage home to England during the war with France and were recorded in Canton from September 1793 until March the following year, joining the convoy of Lord Macartney, returning to England with his embassy in 1794.
The Daniells' Chinese oils, worked up on their return, provide the first large scale depictions of China ever to be seen in England, and, with William Alexander's finished watercolours (from drawings taken on Lord Macartney's embassy to China in 1792-94), and John Webber's Chinese views taken on Cook's third voyage (1779-80), form the earliest major western pictorial record of China.
The present oil is the largest of Thomas Daniell's two views of Canton (the smaller in the collection of Guardian Royal Exchange Plc shows a view of the European factories and Dutch folly fort from the south west side of the Canton River, M. Schellim, op. cit., p. 21 TD62B) and shares a similar viewpoint to William Daniell's four large oils of Canton (Hong Kong Museum of Art; Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon collection; Victoria Memorial, Calcutta; and private collection), the second of which served as the model for plate 30 in the Daniell's A Picturesque Voyage to India by Way of China, London, 1810.
Western trading with China began in the early sixteenth century, the Portugese establishing trading posts or 'factories' at Ningpo, Foochow, Amoy, Canton and Macao. Other European nations followed, British trading beginning with the charter granted to the Hon. East India Company in 1600. The Company first established a site on the riverside at Canton in 1684, and by the time of the Daniells' visit in the mid-1780s, dominated the trade, as evidenced by the 'superior elegance of the British factory' with its wide verandah seen beneath the national flag.
The Chinese had maintained tight controls over the foreigners at Canton, limiting them to the waterfront where their factories were built outside the city walls. They had to deal exclusively with the small group of merchants sanctioned by the Imperial Government, the thirteen members of the Co-Hong, and were not allowed to stay in Canton in the business season: 'In 1771, the company succeeded in purchasing permission to reside at Canton during the winter months (the business season) instead of coming and going with their ships. After the business season the supercargoes (agents of the Company or ships), now established in separate factories allotted to the several nationalities, were annually compelled to return to Macao or home. The ships arrived towards the end of the S.W. monsoon (April to September) and left during the N.E. monsoon (October to March). In 1771 the Co-Hong system was abolished and replaced, in 1782, by the 'Hong Merchants' who had the monopoly of foreign trade and were responsible for the payments due by, and for the personal conduct of, all foreigners.' (J. Orange, The Chater Collection, Pictures relating to China, Hong Kong, Macao, 1655-1860, London, 1924, p. 39.)
The Daniells' views of Canton show the waterfront, the focus of trade between China and the West, as it was in 1785, just one year after the Americans ('second-chop Englishmen' as distinguished by the Chinese) were granted an independent concession. The present view shows the Dutch, British (East India Company) and Swedish factories running from the creek with further factories beyond. The thousand foot plot of land with its single row of factories broadly retained this appearance until the Great Fire of 1822 levelled the buildings and the rebuilt factories were finally replaced with stone structures after the fire of 1841: 'The designation 'factory' was imported from India: it was there used by the East India Company to refer to any commercial house in a foreign port, and had been derived from the Portuguese feitoria (this Portuguese etymology, common to many Anglo-Indian terms, reflects the Portuguese anticipation of Britain in India as in China). In form, too, as well as name, the factories represented an import from India, since their architectural style followed the colonial adaptation of the classical tradition which had been established in India. The most obvious features of this adaptation are the very high ceilings and the spacious verandas (the last term being, incidentally, another Portuguese-Indian word). By the Chinese, the factories were more commonly called 'hongs' ... In front of them was a large open space leading to the quays. This space was technically the only place, apart from the factories themselves, where the merchants were allowed to wander at liberty, the city being closed to them.' (G.H.R. Tillotson, Fan Kwae Pictures, The Hong Kong Bank Art Collection, London, 1987, p. 71).
The Daniells' Chinese oils, worked up on their return, provide the first large scale depictions of China ever to be seen in England, and, with William Alexander's finished watercolours (from drawings taken on Lord Macartney's embassy to China in 1792-94), and John Webber's Chinese views taken on Cook's third voyage (1779-80), form the earliest major western pictorial record of China.
The present oil is the largest of Thomas Daniell's two views of Canton (the smaller in the collection of Guardian Royal Exchange Plc shows a view of the European factories and Dutch folly fort from the south west side of the Canton River, M. Schellim, op. cit., p. 21 TD62B) and shares a similar viewpoint to William Daniell's four large oils of Canton (Hong Kong Museum of Art; Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon collection; Victoria Memorial, Calcutta; and private collection), the second of which served as the model for plate 30 in the Daniell's A Picturesque Voyage to India by Way of China, London, 1810.
Western trading with China began in the early sixteenth century, the Portugese establishing trading posts or 'factories' at Ningpo, Foochow, Amoy, Canton and Macao. Other European nations followed, British trading beginning with the charter granted to the Hon. East India Company in 1600. The Company first established a site on the riverside at Canton in 1684, and by the time of the Daniells' visit in the mid-1780s, dominated the trade, as evidenced by the 'superior elegance of the British factory' with its wide verandah seen beneath the national flag.
The Chinese had maintained tight controls over the foreigners at Canton, limiting them to the waterfront where their factories were built outside the city walls. They had to deal exclusively with the small group of merchants sanctioned by the Imperial Government, the thirteen members of the Co-Hong, and were not allowed to stay in Canton in the business season: 'In 1771, the company succeeded in purchasing permission to reside at Canton during the winter months (the business season) instead of coming and going with their ships. After the business season the supercargoes (agents of the Company or ships), now established in separate factories allotted to the several nationalities, were annually compelled to return to Macao or home. The ships arrived towards the end of the S.W. monsoon (April to September) and left during the N.E. monsoon (October to March). In 1771 the Co-Hong system was abolished and replaced, in 1782, by the 'Hong Merchants' who had the monopoly of foreign trade and were responsible for the payments due by, and for the personal conduct of, all foreigners.' (J. Orange, The Chater Collection, Pictures relating to China, Hong Kong, Macao, 1655-1860, London, 1924, p. 39.)
The Daniells' views of Canton show the waterfront, the focus of trade between China and the West, as it was in 1785, just one year after the Americans ('second-chop Englishmen' as distinguished by the Chinese) were granted an independent concession. The present view shows the Dutch, British (East India Company) and Swedish factories running from the creek with further factories beyond. The thousand foot plot of land with its single row of factories broadly retained this appearance until the Great Fire of 1822 levelled the buildings and the rebuilt factories were finally replaced with stone structures after the fire of 1841: 'The designation 'factory' was imported from India: it was there used by the East India Company to refer to any commercial house in a foreign port, and had been derived from the Portuguese feitoria (this Portuguese etymology, common to many Anglo-Indian terms, reflects the Portuguese anticipation of Britain in India as in China). In form, too, as well as name, the factories represented an import from India, since their architectural style followed the colonial adaptation of the classical tradition which had been established in India. The most obvious features of this adaptation are the very high ceilings and the spacious verandas (the last term being, incidentally, another Portuguese-Indian word). By the Chinese, the factories were more commonly called 'hongs' ... In front of them was a large open space leading to the quays. This space was technically the only place, apart from the factories themselves, where the merchants were allowed to wander at liberty, the city being closed to them.' (G.H.R. Tillotson, Fan Kwae Pictures, The Hong Kong Bank Art Collection, London, 1987, p. 71).