An oil on canvas panoramic harbor view of Macao, titled Macao within the composition at lower center. Attributed to Lam Qua (Chinese, 1801–1860), the foremost Chinese painter serving the foreign merchant community at Canton and Macao during the China Trade, the painting depicts the celebrated panorama from Penha Hill overlooking the Portuguese enclave, including the sweeping Praia Grande waterfront, the ruins of St. Paul’s, Fort Monte, Guia Hill, Ilha Verde, and a harbor alive with Chinese junks and Western merchant vessels. It preserves one of the defining visual records of Macao during the height of the China Trade, decades before photography documented the city.

Today the Macao Special Administrative Region of China, Macao served as the principal residence of Western merchants engaged in the China Trade before Hong Kong assumed that role following the First Opium War. During the first half of the nineteenth century, merchants from the United States and Europe lived in Macao while conducting business in nearby Canton, making the city one of the world’s most important commercial ports. Panoramic views such as this documented its appearance for merchants returning home and today remain invaluable records of its architectural, maritime, and commercial history.

Its uninterrupted descent through the family of Nathaniel Kinsman (1798–1847), the Salem merchant who established Wetmore & Company’s Macao office in 1843, provides exceptional historical context. Kinsman’s Macao residence was the subject of a celebrated pair of Lam Qua paintings that realized $77,635 at Christie’s London in the 2016 sale Topographical Pictures. Together with the Nathaniel Kinsman autograph sea letter and hand-tinted Fanny of Salem photograph offered in the preceding lot, the present painting remains part of an intact family archive documenting one of Salem’s best-known China Trade merchants.

Comparable examples of this celebrated panorama are preserved in the Hong Kong Museum of History and published by leading China Trade scholar Martyn Gregory. Another example of the same view, catalogued as by an unknown Chinese artist (circa 1810), realized £16,640 (approximately US$22,000, including buyer’s premium) at Bonhams London in 2025.

Dimensions: 18 x 24 in.; framed 21.25 x 27 in.

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Relined. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals a few small areas of inpainting appearing limited primarily to the sky. Fine, stable craquelure throughout. Presents well.