All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
An interview and some photographs in the South China Morning Post from the great, Pulitzer Prize winning Liu Heung Shing’s new book Old Road New Connections (ACC Art Books), from all along the Belt and Road Initiative…..click here to read
A 1933 colonial Hong Kong take on Yuefenpai (月份牌), Shanghai’s calendar posters. This one from Fletcher & Co, chemists of Queen’s Road Central. The portrait, “Primrose” is by Stanley Davis who I believe was an English-born New Zealand artist who worked for the NZ Railways Advertising Department. I think “Primrose” was one of a series of 1920s women he painted originally on silk.
This photograph of the Shanghai Bund (Waitan) was published in American newspapers in 1935. Anyone who knew Shanghai then may have laughed over their breakfast pancakes as the image is at least ten or 15 years out of date. No Cathay Hotel, no construction of the Bank of China building and no cars, plus a few other giveaways…. I think this photo must have been taken from the spire of Gilbert Scott’s Holy Trinity Church (aka the “Red Church”), c.1869 that still stands (despite Red Guards and fire) at the northern end of the Bund on Jiujiang Lu.
Petworth House in West Sussex is well worth a visit if you’ve never been. Landscaped gardens created by Capability Brow, a beautiful house which includes a collection of art featuring works by JMW Turner and John Constable. You may know it from Bridgerton. I have in the past blogged about the Chinoiserie and Chinese pieces at Petworth (here) which includes Chinese vases from the Kangxi Period (c.1662-1772) and cabinets. This makes Petworth an excellent location for a new exhibition Expressions in Blue: Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff.
Aylieff’s highly ornamental floral fencai enamelled vessels, some over 6ft tall and all made in Jingdezhen, take their inspiration from the decorative interior in Petworth’s Carved Room, in particular the intricate wood carvings by Grinling Gibbons. A couple of examples below and you can see more details here.
Expressions in Blue: Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff is on till 27 September 2026 (click here for details)…
Shanghai Birds. A Study of Bird Life in Shanghai and the Surrounding Districts by E.S. Wilkinson (Edward Sheldon Wilkinson, 1883–1950), published by the North-China Daily News.
Wilkinson was a British chartered accountant working for the Shanghai Municipal Council, an amateur naturalist, and birdwatcher. He wrote several Shanghai hiking guides and bird-related books a calendars and wrote the “Country Diary” column for the North-China Daily News.
During WW2 he was interned by the Japanese in Shanghai where he ran camp classes in bird watching and ornithology.
If you’re in Hong Kong this month do pop into the Foreign Correspondents’ Club to see their latest photo exhibition on the club walls.
Portugal-born, Macao-based photographer Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro captures Macao’s fading streets, colonial-era buildings and everyday corners, the kind of scenes that disappear as the city keeps changing. Praia de Cheoc Van, Largo do Senado, the old Portuguese school, the Protestant cemetery, documented before they’re gone or already changed for good.
The exhibit is on in the FCC’s Main Bar & Lounge till 31 July….
My thanks to old China aficionado and collector Ed Lanfranco in California for alerting me to this great map – HT Wade’s The Shooting Districts lying between Wuhu and Shanghai together with a map of the Ningpo Country, 1903. Henling Thomas “HT” Wade was the author of With Boat and Gun in the Yangtze Valley, 1910. This is a lovely detailed map with a vignette of the Loongwha (Longhua) Pagoda in the top left corner. I believe Wade himself, a trained cartographer, produced the map. This is the 1903 version though I think the first version of this map was published in 1893. Wade also drew detailed maps of Shanghai, other treaty ports and Hong Kong.
From the Blue Lotus Gallery (Hong Kong)…..
A decade after the viral success of Marcel Heijnen’s Hong Kong Shop Cats, a long-awaited sequel has finally been published. This time, the Dutch photographer turns his lens towards the urban cats of China in Hide-and-Seek: China’s City Cats (躲猫猫). You can buy the book here…..
Encompassing a comprehensive China edition alongside three city-specific volumes, this brand-new four-book collection marks the culmination of Heijnen’s enduring fascination with the feline inhabitants who navigate the ever-shifting landscapes of China’s major cities.
Marcel Heijnen has traversed nearly twenty Chinese cities, documenting the communal courtyards of Shanghai’s shikumen, the enduring residential pockets of Guangzhou, and the lived-in reality of Hong Kong’s traditional trade districts. Rather than seeing these spaces as mere relics, Heijnen portrays them as active, functioning ecosystems in which cats are integral to the social fabric. His lens documents these felines as the “kings and queens” of their domains: ancestral halls, active construction sites, and the small-scale retail hubs that form the backbone of local neighbourhoods.
