A Chinese export painting of a Canton tea-warehouse
Canton, late 18th century
Gouache on paper, H. 30.5 x W. 26 cm
A view inside a Canton tea warehouse with two British merchants, one tasting tea, the other at a table with a Chinese ‘hong’ merchant signing contracts, and Chinese workers trampling the tea into chests, packing, weighing on tripod scales, marking, and boarding tea chests into a sampan to be taken to an East Indiaman anchored at Whampoa, for export to the West. Huge fortunes were made on both sides as Western demand for tea increased throughout the 18th and19th centuries. Western merchants and shippers ordered and bought paintings like the present one as souvenirs of their lucrative trade in China.
Gouache on paper, H. 30.5 x W. 26 cm
A view inside a Canton tea warehouse with two British merchants, one tasting tea, the other at a table with a Chinese ‘hong’ merchant signing contracts, and Chinese workers trampling the tea into chests, packing, weighing on tripod scales, marking, and boarding tea chests into a sampan to be taken to an East Indiaman anchored at Whampoa, for export to the West. Huge fortunes were made on both sides as Western demand for tea increased throughout the 18th and19th centuries. Western merchants and shippers ordered and bought paintings like the present one as souvenirs of their lucrative trade in China.
Part of the China collection.
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