FINE CHINA TRADE PAITNINGS FROM MARTYN GREGORY, LONDON, PART II
CHINESE ARTIST (CIRCA 1842)
The opium clipper Rob Roy and other ships at Calcutta Oil on canvas, inscribed on the pennant 'ROB ROY' and on original backboard 'View of the city of Calcutta / on the Ganges in India / Hooghly [written below 'Ganges] / C. Durand / by ship Clarendon / from China / June 1842'; inscribed in another early hand below: 'Brought by the / supercargo R.P.Dana / for C. Durand', and at foot 'Frame & Picture of / Chinese production'; at right 'Dispatched by Goodhue... / to Canton /18..!', framed. 33cm (13in) high x 44.5cm (17 1/2in) wide.
中國藝術家（約1842年） 泊於加爾各答的鴉片帆船Rob Roy及其它諸船 布面油畫 有框
Provenance: Calvin Durant (1802-1884), Massachusetts, and thence by descent Martyn Gregory, London
Published, Illustrated and Exhibited: Martyn Gregory, From China to the West: Historical pictures by Chinese and Western artists 1770-1870, catalogue 90, London, 2012/2013, pp.86-87, no.88 Martyn Gregory, Images of the East: Historical pictures by Chinese and Western artists 1750-1950, catalogue 97, London, 2017/2018, pp.72-73, no.77
來源：Calvin Durant (1802-1884)，馬薩諸塞州，並由後人保存迄今 倫敦古董商Martyn Gregory
展覽著錄：Martyn Gregory，《From China to the West: Historical pictures by Chinese and Western artists 1770-1870, catalogue 90》，倫敦，2012/2013，第86-87頁，編號88 Martyn Gregory，《Images of the East: Historical pictures by Chinese and Western artists 1750-1950, catalogue 97》，倫敦，2017/2018，第72-73頁，編號77
Calvin Durand (1802-84) of Milford, Connecticut, worked as a clerk for Goodhue & Co., of 64 South Street, New York, a large and influential commission house heavily involved in the China trade, where Durand rose to become a partner and then proprietor.
Views of opium clippers in the Hugli River at Calcutta are very rare and the dome of Government House can be seen on the right. Exports of Indian-grown (but British-owned) opium to China were hugely profitable, and since the first decade of the nineteenth century their value had more than balanced that of the tea sent from China to Britain. The opium was made into cakes at factories in Patna and Gazipur, and sold at auction by the East India Company in Calcutta. From there it was taken to China, initially in slow 'country ships', but from 1829 - when the 'opium clipper' Red Rover was launched - in streamlined vessels capable of making two or three return voyages to China each year.
One of these was the 352-ton barque Rob Roy, built of teak and copper, launched at Ambrose's Yard in Calcutta on 7 January 1837. She was owned by Thomas de Souza & Co., and captained initially by John McKinnon. In December 1837 she made the run from the opium depot at Lintin to Singapore in the remarkably short time of seven days. In the summer of 1838 she struck a reef and was fortunate to be able to continue to Calcutta, where she was found to have lost her entire keel.
Quickly repaired, she continued to move between India and China, and in recorded as having been in Calcutta in June 1839. In 1841 the Rob Roy sailed to Singapore, thence in 1842 on to the east coast of China. She continued to sail between Calcutta and China until she was lost at sea in 1853, by which time steamers had begun to encroach upon the clippers' trade.
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