Emperor's Boat

This painting is from a set of 50 depicting the different types of boats that cluttered the Pearl River. It shows a Chinese emperor's boat. In the early 19th century the Chinese emperor Jiaqing never made a trip to Canton, so the painting is likely to have been a product of the artist's imagination rather than drawn from life. Paintings such as this were mass-produced as souvenir items.

Lord George Macartney (1737-1806) was the first British ambassador to China. His description of the setting reads: 'the river of Canton is covered with boats and vessels of various sorts and sizes, all, even the very smallest, constantly and thickly inhabited'.