Lai Fong was one of a group of Chinese marine painters who worked for the captains and merchants of the oriental trade painting portraits of their ships in oil on canvas. While most worked in Canton, Whampoa, Hong Kong or Shanghai, only one, Lai Fong, worked outside of China in the Indian port of Calcutta.

Although many China Trade painters signed or labeled their canvases, Lai Fong was one of the few to regularly date them. From these dates we can see an active painter who worked from the middle 1870s through about 1905. During that period he painted vessels from across the globe—generally in a 26 x 35 inch format.

Lai Fong successfully melded the conventions of European and American ship portrwww.childsgallery.com/artist.php...