Page 61 - A Time and A Place Catalogue, Jorge Welsh

71 Painting
A painting in oil on canvas showing a view
of Praia Grande in the city of Macao, in a painted
and gilt wooden frame. The composition depicts
several boats and sampans anchored on the calm
waters of the Praia Grande bay. Other small boats,
including a ship flying the Portuguese royal flag
and a steamboat with the Red Ensign of Great
Britain, are sailing in the harbour. The view of
the city starts at the Penha Hill to the left, with in their workshops several painters who would
the Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Penha de França
on top, from which a wall runs down to the fort
of Nossa Senhora do Bom Parto, near the shore.
On the right is seen the Monte fortress on the
hill with the same name. In the foreground is the
Bateria 1º de Dezembro, near the Grémio Militar
building. Following the path by the river, which
is bordered by lamp posts and several trees, it is
possible to identify some buildings along the line
of Neoclassical architecture, namely the Hing
Kee Hotel, which appears before the post-office
building, and halfway along the pavement, in front
of the pink building now known as the Governor’s
Palace, and the small fort of São Pedro, with
a raised flag. Behind these buildings along
the shore are other structures located at higher
points, including the Cathedral of Macao and,
at a distance, the silhouette of the façade
of the old Church of São Paulo.
As Carl L. Crossman mentioned in The Decorative Oil on canvas mounted
Arts of China Trade, ‘The identity of the Chinese in a Chinese wooden
artists painting in the western style for a foreign frame
market and the paintings they entangled is a
mass of labels, signatures, attributed paintings China — Qing dynasty,
and hundreds of undocumented works of Guangxu period
considerable quality’.1 In fact, the group of China (1875-1908), ca. 1885
trade ‘master’ painters based in Canton, included
H. 45.5 cm
have produced a considerable number of works L. 60 cm
of great quality for export. However, the lack of H. 55.8 cm
documentation and recognisable characteristics L. 70 cm
on these paintings only enables the identification (including frame)
of a small number of painters and their workshops.2
This is the case with the present painting and
the following entry, in which the artist cannot be
identified. This type of painting was most probably
made as a set of city views, as suggested by other
oil painting sets in private and public collections.
This is documented on the shipping list of a Salem
supercargo, which mentions ‘Sullivan Dorr of
Providence, Rhode Island, sent four port scenes
of Bogert [sic], Whampoa, Canton and Macao
to his brother in 1800’.3 →
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