Page 120 - Christie's London China Trade Paintings Kelton Collection

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CHINESE SCHOOL, CIRCA 1855
Schooner ‘Frolic’, John Crosby, Commander, Hongkong, August 23rd 1855
titled in a painted cartouche
oil on canvas
18¿ x 23¬in. (46 x 60cm.)
£7,000-10,000 US$8,700-12,000
€7,900-11,000
PROVENANCE:
Philip C. F. Smith (ownership inscription on the stretcher).
Anon. sale, Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 17 August 2002, lot 670.

EXHIBITED:
Hong Kong, Hong Kong Maritime Museum, The Dragon and the Eagle: American Traders in China, A Century of Trade from 1784 to
1900, Dec. 2019-April 2019, 2.42.
Probably the ship built by Samuel Hall in Boston and launched in 1843, the topsail schooner Frolic is armed, suggesting she may be
an Opium runner. It has been suggested that she fies the fag of the Boston frm Thomas Gray & Company, although the fag fies
at the main gaf-peak where the national fag usually fies, and the house fag, if it is such, is identical to the fag of Chile.

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