A VIEW OF THE HONGS AT CANTON, BY SUNQUA QING DYNASTY, LATE 1830S | 清 1830年代末期 新呱 廣州十三商館 油彩 裝框

The Private Collection of S. Morton and Ruth D. Vose

Northeast Auctions, Manchester, New Hampshire, August 3-4, 1991, lot 627

Margaret Riordan, Stoninington, Connecticut 

The foreign factories, or hongs, were the catalyst for the rapid development of trade and economic prosperity along the Canton waterfront in the 19th century. However, on November 1st, 1822, a devastating fire broke out and is later known as the 'Great Fire of 1822'. The fire first began in a small bakery a mile and a half north of the factories, and by the end of the night on November 2nd, the fire had left nearly 50,000 people homeless and the waterfront in ruins. However, the hongs and surrounding areas were quickly rebuilt and the Canton waterfront entered its heyday between 1822 and 1839, until the beginning of the First Opium War. The present example depicts the Canton waterfront during this time of affluence and growth, as evident by the busy waterways. A virtually identical painting by Sunqua is illustrated in Patrick Conner, The Hongs of Canton, London, 2009, p. 111, fig. 5.1, from the Tilroe collection, previously in the collection of The Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, and sold at Christie's Hong Kong, October 9th, 1990, lot 1330, and again at Christie's London, November 16th, 1999, lot 274. Conner highlights the depiction of the intermingling between Chinese, Parsis and Westerners in the open square as an idealistic scene, seldom seen in later China trade paintings. Conner also mentions the intentional use of dark clouds and heavy shadow in the foreground as influenced by the Western technique, chiaroscuro.