FOREIGN COLOURS OVER THE RIVER PEARL
Punch bowls decorated with views of the European trading posts at Canton (Guangzhou) were popular China trade souvenirs. Dating from the 1760s–1820s, they were acquired by supercargoes and o cers of the various East India companies and other foreign merchants, who lived for months at a time in these mercantile warehouses, known as ‘hongs’. Chinese authorities restricted foreign traders to this quay, just outside the city walls, on a harbour of the River Pearl. Porcelain, silk, lacquer, fans, handscrolls and other commodities were purchased from shops lining a narrow street near the hongs, where these punch bowls were ordered by Westerners as a privilege of private trade, small compensation for risking their lives under the constant threat of shipwreck, piracy or disease.
This hong punch bowl, at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire, is interesting, as the family had no direct connections with China. It is first documented in an inventory of 1806 following the death of Sir Rowland Winn, 6th Baronet (1775–1805), ‘a gay fox hunter’, who had inherited Nostell in 1785 at the age of 10.
The bowl depicts flagsta s along the quay displaying the colours of the international trading nations in residence during a particular season. The seven colours represent Denmark, Spain, France, America, Sweden, Britain and the Netherlands. These match the national a liations of the ships anchored at Whampoa, on the River Pearl, in both the 1786–7 and 1788–9 seasons; current scholarship favours the latter date for the scenes on the bowl. This is among the earliest depictions of the American flag, placed near the Swedish hong, where the Americans eventually established a longterm residence.
The design relates to contemporary topographical views of Canton painted as handscrolls by Cantonese artists trained in Western single-point perspective, also acquired as souvenirs. Sir Rowland Winn may have acquired his hong punch bowl at a London auction or shop – or perhaps it was the victor’s prize in a hell for leather horse race or fox hunt, presented filled with hot, steaming punch.