Paintings

A collection of ten small oval oil paintings of different Chinese junks, which we believe are painted by the Chinese artist Nam Cheong c1865.

They are titled in painted captions on gold mounts: Cargo Junk Canton, Fishing Junk Canton, Salt Junk Canton, Junk Amoy, Junk Chefoo, Junk Tientsin, Mandarin War Junk, Passenger Junk Whampoa and two different Passenger Junk Hong Kong.

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 often 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 revers, but most are identified by their style. He had set up a studio at Queens Road, Hong Kong by about 1870. Two signs outside in the street proclaimed, Nam Cheong from Whampoa, Portrait and Landscape Painter & c. No.70. He was a neighbour of the accomplished Chinese photographer Afong Lai who was at No. 54.