BOOK REVIEWS
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artists. It is disturbing indeed to find that two of these previously published elsewhere as "attributed" — are promoted here to "full" Chinnery status without a word of explanation!
12
How does one reconcile the title "The Hong Merchant, Gou Qua" with the picture showing a man in the costume of a North China scholar?
Anyone familiar with Chinese ship portraits and Chinese port scenes will question the two handsome Chinese Junk oils.13 The clue is the small British and American vessels in the lower corners of the "War Junk" — alluring to a prospective nautical purchaser, typical of many ship portraits, but so different in style and subject from other Chinnery marines.
The time has come to bury forever that misused, euphonic term "School of Chinnery". Take port scenes. Mariners and merchants arrived in Canton centuries before Chinnery. Even my two great grandfathers14 had won their battle with the pirates off Macao nearly a generation before Chinnery's arrival. What is more natural than to take home a port scene oil to show one's family. These men were not art experts and Chinese representations were good enough for them. It is possible today to date port scenes definitely prior to Chinnery, proving that Chinnery had no influence on those Chinese artists. It is also possible to date similar port scenes after Chinnery's death that show no style change from the earlier representations. Why not be honest and call them "China Trade Port Scenes",15 which they are, instead of "School of Chinnery", which they are not? To all other port scenes such as St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope16 “School of Chinnery”, verges on fantasy, particularly so when the text denies the existence of any Chinnery pictures made on his voyage to India.17
12 Plate 42 top.
13 Plate 73.
14 William Sturgis and Daniel C. Bacon. See R. B. Forbes — Personal Reminiscences.
15 It has taken many years to substitute the correct "China Trade Porcelain" for "Oriental Lowestoft".
16 Plate 55 bottom, Plate 56 top.
17 Page 59.