Paintings

A view of a fully laden Chinese junk in a rough sea painted in oils on canvas, in an oval format, by the famous Chinese artist Namcheong. This picture was painted in the middle of the 19th century.

Nam Cheong is one of the few identified artists of the China Trade. He is believed to have had a studio in Whampoa in the 1850s as many of his known works feature the Whampoa Pagoda and area. He painted both ships and port scenes using a distinctive palette of colours. His paintings are identified stylistically by his favoured pink and red tones in the distant clouds and his  smoothly rendered water with a soft play of light in the foreground. A few of his paintings are signed or bear a stamp on the reverse, but most are identified by their style.

In the 1860s Namcheong set up a studio in Hong Kong on the Queen's Road. His studio sign is identifiable on the first floor of an elegant building on the Queen's Road in a photograph taken by the local photographer Afong Lai in the late 1860s and reads, Nam Cheong from Whampoa, Portrait & Landscape Painter & c. No.70.