Anonymous Chinese Artist, circa 1860 View of the Bund, Shanghai

Anonymous Chinese Artist, circa 1860
View of the Bund, Shanghai
Oil on canvas, Chinese Chippendale-style ebonized and gilt carved wood frame.
16 1/2 x 42 1/4in (41.9 x 107.3cm)
Framed: 21 1/2 x 47 1/2in (54.6 x 120.6cm)
Footnotes:
佚名中國畫師 約1860年 《上海外灘》 布面油彩裝奇彭代爾風格金漆木框

This view of the Shanghai Bund was created in the mode of, and undoubtedly after, the works of Chow Qua, but by an unknown artist with a distinctive style, the signature element of which appears to be a dark strip of water in the foreground. The dark element is an anomaly, although it appears in a series of paintings of the Bund in the 1850s. The depiction of the buildings lining the Bund is nearly identical to the works of Chow Qua and imply that this artist or studio used one of Chow Qua's paintings as a model. However, the representation of ships, both Chinese and Western, is less complicated and the individual vessels are more evenly spread out. The presence of a small steamer, which looks like a tugboat, is highly unusual and has not yet been found in any other painting.

For a full description of the buildings along the Bund, see the foot note to lot 180 in this sale.

Related works: Two paintings of Shanghai with the dark foreground are in the Peabody Essex Museum, in M. V. and Dorothy Brewington, Marine Paintings and Drawing in the Peabody Museum, Salem, 1981, p. 59, no. 250; and p. 89, nos. 395 and 400; another in the Kelton Collection, sold Christie's London, November 7, 2019, lot 90, formerly with Martyn Gregory, London, 1984, Catalogue no. 38, no. 6.