Paintings

Panorama of Kowloon from Victoria Peak. Signed lower right, C. Wirgman, Hong Kong.

Charles Wirgman's rare panoramic study of Kowloon is an unusual topographical view showing only a few small villages on the Kowloon peninsula. Here Kowloon peninsula is seen extending like an elephant's trunk into the water, an area that is now known as Tsim Sha Tsui. It was probably painted in 1859 and points towards Kowloon becoming part of colonial Hong Kong in 1860.  

Charles Wirgman was an artist and correspondent who started working for the London magazine, The Illustrated London News in the middle of the nineteenth century. He arrived in Hong Kong in 1857 and started sketching, and writing stories, a number of which would be published over the next couple of years as wood engravings. Together with his friend the photographer Felice Beato he was accommodated by the military authorities with the British expeditionary force to the north of China in 1860. Beato arrived in Hong Kong in March 1860 and took three panoramic views which were among the earliest photographic panoramas of the city and Kowloon. Various military encampments appear in his pictures of Kowloon, taken in March 1860.

Reference: 

The Hong Kong Directory: With List of Foreign Residents in China 1859, lists, Wirgman, Charles. Artist. Living in Canton.