[
    {
        "id": 206480,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1972",
        "page_number": 28,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "22\n\nP. H. COLLIN\n\nof the time. The painting of the praya at Macao (No. XVII) is a scene which is found in many nineteenth-century illustrated books;* the picture of the East walls of Canton (No. XXXV) is virtually the same as that of the frontispiece of Fisher's Three Years' Service in China, that of Howqua's garden (No. XLV) closely resembles the frontispiece of Albert Smith's pamphlet To China and Back. The dealer from whom the paintings were acquired was unable to identify their origin, nor the artist whose initials G.A.S. appear on numbers XXXIII and XLV. Nor was it possible to find any clues as to the whereabouts of the missing paintings, which, to go by the Roman numbers on the reverse, must be at least twenty-five in number.\n\nTo discover the identity of the artist, there are certain clues in the paintings themselves. In view of their dates, it seems certain that he must have come to the Far East in connection with the \"Arrow\" war and the capture of Canton in December 1857. Reinforcements for this campaign were requested by Admiral Seymour in the summer of 1857 and arrived in China waters during the autumn of that year. The first to arrive were the steam-transports Imperador and Imperatrix, which reached Hong Kong on 28th October and 6th November respectively. Some time after them came the Adelaide, also a steamer, which, although leaving England at the same time as others (the Imperador left Plymouth on August 10th, the Imperatrix on 12th August, the Adelaide on 17th August), only arrived in Hong Kong on December 1st. Wingrove Cooke, in his despatches to \"The Times\", reveals the impatience of the Hong Kong garrison with what he calls \"this lagging log, the Adelaide.\" In a later report, he states that \"the long-expected Adelaide made her appearance on the 1st, having on board twenty officers and 507 rank and file\". Judging from the date on the first painting, the artist we are concerned with must have been aboard the Adelaide: perhaps he devoted himself to painting to relieve the tedium of the excessively long voyage.\n\nThere were, of course, people in Hong Kong at the time who might have painted the pictures. Albert Smith mentions meeting on 24th August 1858 the son-in-law of the P. and O. agent, a “Mr.\n\n* As, for example, in James Orange, The Chater Collection, Pictures relating to China, Hong Kong, Macao 1655-1830 (1924).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206481,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1972",
        "page_number": 29,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "Scarth3 \n\nNINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON \n\nT \n\n- \n\n23 \n\nan excellent artist by the way (who) told me he once saw 150 people beheaded on the execution ground at Canton”.4 The Bishop of Victoria, the Rev. George Smith has almost the right initials, but neither he nor Scarth were on the Adelaide. None of the artists in the Catalogue of the Chater Collection has the initials G.A.S. \n\nAmong the passengers arriving on the Adelaide, the \"Friend of China\" of December 2nd notes the twenty officers by name, among them Lieutenants Schomberg and Short. \"The Hongkong Shipping List\" of the same date, refers to Major Schomberg, R.A., and Lieut. Short. The artist of the paintings must have been subsequently sent from Hong Kong up the Pearl River to the Bogue before December 16th, to join the troops which had arrived earlier on the Imperador and Imperatrix who had been sent on to the Bogue immediately after their arrival. Indeed the Adelaide, with her troops on board, moved up the river from Hong Kong on December 2nd. The artist presumably was present at the capture of Canton on 29th December, and at any rate was in the city in February 1858. He took part in what he calls the \"Jingal pic-nic\" on the 20th of that month. \n\nThis curious inscription (a jingal being a sort of portable Chinese field-gun hardly conducive to a picnic atmosphere) is explained further, and at some length in Col Fisher's Three Years' Service in China, Col. Fisher relates: \"On the 20th February a pic-nic party went out to see a little of the country and of the people; and as we did not know what sort of reception we should meet with, we made rather a strong muster. There were nine officers and twenty-four men, with a couple of ponies to carry the luncheon. We started before seven o'clock, going out through the north-east gate of the city. \n\n+ \n\n\"After walking for about three hours, we rested in a very pretty spot under some fine trees, and one of the party shot a woodcock, which was hailed as a great event; and we determined to devote some little attention to so good a cause. We did not wish to return by the same road by which we had come out. The valley in which we were, we knew to be divided from the great north plain, by the White Cloud Mountains, a range familiar to our eyes from Canton. We hoped to reach that plain by some pass through the hills, and so return to Canton by way of the North Gate.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
        "rank": 0
    }
]