From Commodities to Exhibits: An Analysis of Shipping in the Pearl River off Canton and Shipping in the Pearl River off Honam Island, Canton in the National Maritime Museum in the UK

Abstract

This essay focuses on two Chinese export paintings, Shipping in the Pearl River off Canton and Shipping in the Pearl River off Honam Island, Canton, demonstrating the port views in Canton in the mid-nineteenth century in the National Maritime Museum. On the basis of an iconographic analysis method, and with reference to known similar works, this paper suggests the idea that the two works may come from Youqua’s studio, and the former was produced later than 1844. Simultaneously, this paper analyses the historical significance of the works in the dimension of both commodities and exhibits. Based on the exploration of the Chinese export paintings reflecting the East-West trade and Chinese society characteristics in a specific historical period, it also exposes the colonial nature of the work following the perspective of display and proposes the exhibition logic which restores the nature of the work as commodities as a practice of decolonization in the museum.