These paintings open a window onto the China trade—the commercial world that connected Canton with Europe, India, and the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Foreign merchants wanted pictures of the ports they visited, the ships that carried their cargoes, and the people who built fortunes through the trade. Cantonese artists responded by combining Chinese subjects and craftsmanship with Western oil painting, perspective, shading, and portraiture.
The Waikoloa collection includes waterfront views, merchant portraits, and a ship portrait. Some may be nineteenth-century China-coast paintings. Others appear to be later reproductions commissioned in Hong Kong for the resort. Together, they show how images traveled through the same international marketplace as tea, silk, porcelain—and opium.
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Oil on canvas, painted wooden frame
Mid- late 19th Century
China
Chinese art for export to Europe, America
Chinese school, probably Canton/GuangzhouProbably mid- to late 19th CenturyOil on canvas
Thomas Daniell - The Dutch Folly Fort, CantonThe fort, river traffic, and distant waterfront became recurring subjects in China-trade painting.
George Chinnery (1774-1852)
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Chinese Trade Paintings appear in the following tablet programs:
PAINTINGS OF THE CHINA TRADE
The ships, people, and places of a new international marketplace
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THE PLACES
Canton and the Dutch Folly Fort
Look closely at Waikoloa’s river scenes and you may recognize the same unusual structure in two paintings: a small fortified island with battlements, an arched entrance, and a Chinese-style roof.
This is the Dutch Folly Fort, once a familiar landmark in the Pearl River at Canton. Its distinctive silhouette appeared repeatedly in paintings purchased by foreign merchants.
British artists Thomas and William Daniell—uncle and nephew—sketched Canton and Whampoa while traveling through China in 1785–86 and again in 1793. Their paintings and widely circulated prints helped establish the panoramic European view of the China coast.
George Chinnery, who settled in Macao in 1825, also painted the fort, river traffic, waterfront buildings, and everyday life around the Pearl River. Compare the Chinnery and Daniell views with the Waikoloa paintings. The repeated viewpoint reveals how artists borrowed compositions from one another and adapted familiar landmarks for new customers.
George Chinnery, The Dutch Folly Fort at Canton
Chinnery brought greater atmosphere, color, and immediacy to the familiar river scene.
THE PEOPLE
William Jardine and the Merchants of Canton
The man seated beside the red curtain is William Jardine, a Scottish physician who became one of the most powerful merchants on the China coast.
Jardine made much of his fortune through the opium trade and co-founded Jardine, Matheson & Co. at Canton in 1832. The company later moved its headquarters to the newly established British colony of Hong Kong.
Waikoloa’s portrait is a cropped and rearranged copy of a painting by George Chinnery, Jardine’s friend and artistic patron. Chinnery’s original shows Jardine seated full-length at his desk, surrounded by books, papers, a quill, and a view of the harbor. It sold at Christie’s in 2023 for £100,800.
Several reproductions of this painting are known to have been made by Chinese artists at the time and Waikoloa's version could be one of these or possibly painted much later by the Hong Kong artist commissioned by the Hemmeter family to reproduce historic works for the resort.
Portrait of William Jardine, before 1843
The merchant, his office, and the harbor beyond present commerce as the source of Jardine’s identity and power.
Portrait of William Jardine, before 1843
by George Chinnery (1774-1852)
THE SHIPS
Portraits Under Sail
For merchants and captains, a ship portrait was both a record and a symbol of achievement. Artists carefully reproduced a vessel’s rigging, flags, hull, and identifying features.
Waikoloa’s painting of the American ship Isaac Reed belongs to this tradition. Built at Waldoboro, Maine, in 1875, the vessel later traded at Hong Kong. A portrait of the Isaac Reed attributed to the Hong Kong painter Pun Woo and dated about 1878 has been documented.
Whether Waikoloa’s painting is that work, another period version, or a later reproduction cannot yet be determined. A signature, inscription, canvas mark, or examination of the back may eventually supply the answer.
MEET THE ARTISTS
A style created between cultures
Thomas and William Daniell recorded Canton through the conventions of British landscape and marine painting. Their published images circulated widely and influenced how Western audiences imagined China.
George Chinnery painted merchants, officials, boats, streets, and landscapes around Canton and Macao. His atmospheric style strongly influenced the appearance of nineteenth-century China-trade painting.
Spoilum was among the earliest identifiable Cantonese artists to paint Western and Chinese merchants, sea captains, port scenes, and reverse paintings on glass for foreign customers. He charged $10 for a portrait, which he completed in a two- to three-hour sitting.
Fatqua operated a shop near Canton’s foreign factories. He offered oils, watercolors, reverse-glass paintings, and even boxes of artists’ colors—evidence of a sophisticated commercial art industry.
Lamqua became one of Canton’s most accomplished portraitists. He worked in the European manner and produced portraits and copies for foreign merchants, sometimes reproducing paintings originally commissioned from Chinnery.
These familiar names represented only part of the industry. Studios employed numerous assistants, and many surviving paintings remain unsigned. Attributions can therefore be difficult—and sometimes impossible—to establish.
ART AS COMMERCE
China-trade paintings were more than records of commerce. They were commercial products themselves—made for foreign customers, packed aboard ships, and carried around the world.
The port was the marketplace. The merchant arranged the exchange. The ship carried the cargo. The artist transformed all three into a lasting image of international trade.
Lamqua's self-portrait
Early photograph of Lamqua in his studio.
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Spoilum's portrait of a Hawaiian chief in Canton, 1787
Three-masted American barque - Believed to be the Isaac Reed
These "ship portraits" were commissioned by their owners or captains and included details such as the Chinese junk just behind to show that the ship was engaged in the China trade.
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