By 1843

Portrait of Hou Qua II (Wu Ping-Chien)

This dramatic portrait of the vastly wealthy, highly respected Chinese merchant Hou Qua (1769–1843)—one of a small number of individuals that the emperor allowed to trade with the West—is based on a composition by British expatriate artist George Chinnery, who was active in southern China. Chinnery’s painting was brought to Philadelphia in 1828 by Benjamin Chew Wilcocks, a friend of the artist and a businessman and diplomat who played an important role in the American China trade.

Wilcocks subsequently commissioned two additional pictures of Hou Qua, one from Philadelphia portraitist Thomas Sully (1783–1872) in 1828 and another, seen here, by American artist/copyist Esther Speakman, who is known to have exhibited such a canvas in Philadelphia in 1843. These multiple representations of the Chinese trader demonstrate the strength of the US market for Chinese imagery, which provided work not only for foreign artists but also for Americans.