[China] Chinese school, ca. 1860. Chinese war junk ship at sea

Oil on canvas, 25.5 x 19 cm, framed.

Chinese export painting portraying a Chinese war junk, an official derivative of the smuggler’s "fast crabs" (fei xie) known in English either as a small war junk (kuai du or "fast ferry"), or as a large war junk (da bingchuan or “large soldier boat”). The difference usually derived from the number of oars on each side (12 in the present work), the armament and the size of the ship’s company. The smaller kuai du were generally manned by forty to fifty deckhands and were relatively lightly armed, here with a small caliber cannon mounted in the bow and a larger starboard cannon further aft. Similar vessels were used to transport major officials like the Hoppo (hu bu); perhaps the two Chinese characters on the green flag in the painting indicate such an official. The exact location seems to be Nei Lingding Island/ Lantau in the Pearl Bay in the southeastern Chinese province of Guangdong. Cf. Ivon A. Donnelly, Chinese Junks and other Native Craft, Hong Kong, 2008; Stephen Davies, Coasting Past: The Last of South China Coastal Trading Junks (...), Hong Kong Maritime Museum, 2013.