NamCheong
Active: 1840-1870

NamCheong is a painter of both ships and port scenes whose compositional devices and use of light make him readily identifiable. His most common paintings are vertical ovals of the small vessels and landscape around the Whampoa Anchorage pagoda and the French and Dutch Folly forts. Several of these still exist, and all have the same palette and play of light on the foreground water. NamCheong’s large ship portraits usually painted at the Whampoa Anchorage (it is suggested that his studio was at Whampoa since so many of his paintings use the Whampoa area as a background or for subject matter) are handsome in composition and palette and very well executed.

A number of paintings commissioned by Thomas Hunt of Salem seem to have been executed by NamCheong in the 1850’s. Hunt ran a ships’ chandlery at Whampoa with James Cook and James Endicott. He and his family lived aboard a houseboat at Whampoa which was anchored with numerous other Hunt vessels used for storage, freight transportation from Whampoa to Canton, ocean travel and the chandlery. The bulk of the group of paintings is now in the Peabody-Essex Museum, complete with diagrams of the vessels and their functions which were drawn and annotated by Hunt himself. A view of the Hunt boatyard and dry dock at Whampoa, with the schooners “Brenda” and “Minna” is signed by NamCheong and was part of the Hunt bequest.

Several other paintings of the large Hunt fleet at anchor at Whampoa would also seem to be by NamCheong, as they are easily associated with the signed painting and have stylistic similarities to his other signed works. Many illustrations of his works can be found in the book “The China Trade” Export Paintings, Furniture, Silver and Other Objects by Carl L.Crossman.

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