This book makes a subtle contribution to the dating of Chinese export paintings produced before the Opium War, especially those depicting the foreign commercial premises (the “Thirteen Factories”) in Canton. It has been generally believed that Chinese export paintings were used as souvenirs and whether they accurately depicted the buildings and street scenes of the time was not the producers’ main concern. Paul Van Dyke and Maria Mok successfully demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case.

William Shang (Shinichi Yasuda) once asserted that dating Chinese export paintings is not an easy task, because they were copied over and over from a number of original templates. As they were not sketched on the spot, they are thought not to accurately represent the actual situation of the time in which they were made. However, he suggested that by examining the variations of some specific elements, it is still possible to ascertain the original production date of the paintings. These elements include pagodas, forts, batteries, and sediments along the Pearl River of Canton.Footnote ¹

In their work, Van Dyke and Mok have made good use of these elements in dating the paintings. In addition, they pay particular attention to the national flags in front of the depicted factories. They find that flags were hoisted as the foreign traders came and occupied certain factories, and lowered at their departure. Taking this into consideration and cross-referencing the diaries and journals kept by the European companies, it is now possible to date the paintings much more precisely than it used to be, a method successfully employed by the authors.

Paul A. Van Dyke is a prolific historian. He has previously published several books on the old China trade in Canton, including Merchants of Canton and Macao: Politics and Strategies in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade (2007) and The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700–1845 (2011). He has conducted research in many libraries with vast archives on the East India Companies. Van Dyke's intensive recourse to archival sources has allowed him to solve many historical riddles. However, research on the Canton trade does not need to be limited to textual sources found in library archives. If used properly, visual sources can provide unexpected insights into this part of history. In addition to consulting museum archives and libraries, the authors have worked with a number of art connoisseurs and antique dealers, such as Martyn Gregory in London. Co-author Maria Kar-wing Mok is a curator at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. She is in charge of the research, exhibitions, and publications at the museum's Historical Pictures Collection. She has previously contributed to two publications on Hong Kong's historical paintings. The two authors form a good partnership, creating this interesting and useful book.

Of course, they are not the only scholars who have made efforts on this topic. Patrick Conner, for example, has already done a very good job in dating the Thirteen Factories paintings.Footnote ² The authors have duly sought advice from Conner and others, and adopted some of their opinions. For example, the time frame set for this book spans from 1760 to 1822. The authors note that they selected 1760 as the starting point partly because the Cohong (the consolidating guild of Chinese merchants) was established in that year. In addition, export paintings depicting the “Thirteen Factories” featuring European architectural elements only became more available after about 1762, according to Patrick Conner and William Shang. This explanation, however, allows some room for doubt. It is, in fact, not necessary to link the adoption of European architectural styles to the formation of the Cohong, as no evidence shows that connection. A painting reproduced by H. B. Morse, captioned “The Canton Factories, c. 1730,” already shows the factories featuring certain European stylistic elements, several years before the establishment of the Cohong.Footnote ³ This same picture is used again in C. J. A. Jörg's Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade, with the only difference being that this author gives a date of circa 1740.Footnote ⁴ In addition, according to Craig Clunas, a considerable quantity of Chinese export paintings were sent to Europe as early as the 1720s.Footnote ⁵ Moreover, there was a big fire in 1743 (Commodore Anson and his crew rendered their services in extinguishing the fire), and the post-disaster reconstruction might have provided a good opportunity to rebuild the “factories” and inject some European architectural elements in the meantime. All this shows that the period between the 1720s and 1760 merits further investigation.

Another question I would raise concerns the dating of the Canton shopping areas. During the few decades before the Opium War, there were three narrow streets with many shops accessible to foreigners. Hog Lane was the first to function as a designated shopping area, followed by Old China Street, and New China Street. Their appearance in the export paintings is a good indicator for determining the dates. Less controversy surrounds the dating of New China Street than that of Old China Street and Hog Lane. Concerning Old China Street, I believe that it might have been established not long after the 1743 fire. For the origin and naming of Hog Lane, here I would like to add a few words.

In Chinese documents, Hog Lane, as it was referred to by foreigners, is called Xin Doulan 新荳欄 or Xia Doulan 下荳欄, that is, New or Lower Doulan, implying there was an Old or Upper Doulan. In fact, it is not difficult to find Shang Doulan 上荳欄 (Upper Doulan) on contemporary maps and in Chinese official documents. Doulan Jie (street) stretched from north to south, dividing itself at Shisanhang Jie (the Thirteen Factories Street). The southern part was Xin or Xia Doulan, and was close to the Factories area. Dou means beans, while Lan is a specific local term for a market area common in the province of Guangdong. (cf. Qu Dajun, Guangdong Xinyu and W. Lobscheid, A Chinese and English Dictionary, 1866). Therefore, it should be translated as “Bean Lane” instead of “Hog Lane.” In fact, in the southwestern suburb of the Canton city, there were many lan, specializing in providing particular services, or selling livestock, vegetables, etc. As shown by the two authors, a Swedish map from 1748 shows the suburb's shopping area covering quite a few streets. Shang Doulan is one of them and must have been an area for bean vending, although this is not necessarily so for the lower part, as this extension served as an area for selling Chinese products to foreigners and kept the same name for the sake of convenience. But why was it referred to as “Hog Lane” by foreigners?

In the eighteenth century, it was quite common to find hogs roaming around in Canton's suburbs, as witnessed by Charles Frederick Nobel and Peter Osbeck around 1750. Osbeck says: “Nothing is more common than to see Chinese hogs, dogs, and chicken, about the streets, and in houses; yet every thing is cleanly here, because poor people continually go about with baskets and gather up all the filth.”Footnote ⁶ I thus surmise that Xin Doulan was named “Hog Lane” by foreigners not because it specialized in selling hogs (or even beans), or because it was filthy, but because free-roaming hogs stood out to foreign onlookers. This could be the reason for the difference between the English name and Chinese name. More sources would need to be consulted to verify this idea.

The only lacuna in this work is that sources other than in European languages have not been extensively consulted. The correspondences between the Hong merchants and foreign traders, such as F.O. 1048 kept in the National Archives in London, provide much useful information about events that occurred in the Factories area. Likewise, some Asian maps, such as the one included in the Royal Siamese Maps: War and Trade in Nineteenth-Century Thailand (Santanee Phasuk and Philip Stott eds., River Books, 2004), provide images of that area for comparison which could strengthen this work's arguments.

In brief, this book convincingly demonstrates the archival value of the export paintings and provides wonderful visual proof for this. Future researchers on this topic should take advantage of its findings.