Chinese Paintings & Scrimshaw, ca. 1850
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GUEST:
My great-grandfather shipped on the Portsmouth, which was the second ship into Japan in 1856.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
He served 38 years in the Navy.
APPRAISER:
And he was in Asia and the China trade, basically.
GUEST:
All over.
APPRAISER:
What we've got here is an excellent history of the China trade to the West. And one of the very first groups, Europeans, that were there as traders, were the Dutch. And you'll notice that on the hilltops, there are these little black dots and these walls. Those are actually fortifications. They were put in by the Dutch. And this is the Pearl River, outside Canton. And certainly in the 17th century, it started to expand, and the Dutch put fortifications in there to maintain their monopoly over the China trade. Well, it didn't work. So by the time your great-great-great-grandfather was there, these forts were abandoned. And they were called the Dutch Folly forts.
GUEST:
Huh.
APPRAISER:
So ships, as they went up the Pearl River, would come through here. And then they would go to this area, which is called Whampoa Reach. And you can see, actually, there's an American flag on this ship right there.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And Americans were very involved in the China trade. Well, the Pearl River was too shallow. So what they'd do is, they would unload these ships full of cargo and put it on shallow-draft vessels that would go all the way up to Canton. He was also in other cities. And if you look over at this picture, you'll see this waterfront with the houses. That's the city of Macau, which was a Portuguese colony.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
Because with the Dutch, the Portuguese were among the first traders in Asia, and they again lost their monopoly. But they maintained it in Macau from the 16th century all the way to the, almost the present day. They just relinquished it fairly recently.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And you notice that those buildings there are all European-based architecture.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
Finally, here we come to this city. This is Hong Kong. And if you look here in the background, you'll see that there's a little teeny American flag on the hill. Americans were trading in Hong Kong, even though it was an English colony.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
These are probably from the mid-1840s to mid-1850s. This was all in a big book, along with other pictures that were more typical, like this. I picked these four out of the 40-something you had because these are much better quality than the others. The condition's a little rough. You can see some pieces that have fallen apart. But you've also got a scrimshaw. What do you know about it?
GUEST:
My great-grandfather, his stepfather was a ship chandler up in Massachusetts, in New Bedford. He supplied a good portion of the whaling ships that went out of that area. And that's where they must have picked this up.
APPRAISER:
So it's the same fellow that brought all this back...
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
...was the one that brought the scrimshaw.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
I think, at auction, the whole group would bring between $12,000 and $18,000.
GUEST:
Jeez! (laughs) It's amazing.
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