Macao Trade Art: Depicting Macao between 1637 and 1842

This paper establishes a new case study titled Macao Trade Art focusing on circa three hundred paintings, and numerous prints, engravings, sketches, drawings, and a few painted fans that depict Macao and date from the mid 17^th century to the mid-19^th century. Understanding this artistic production requires a multi-disciplinary research strategy that integrates data and methodological tools from across a wide range of disciplines, including literature, sociology, and economic history. Macao Trade Art, a subcategory of China Trade Art, emerged from commissions originally from Western (curiously, mostly non-Portuguese) patrons, followed by requests from Chinese and other Asian clients. These works were produced both by Western and Chinese painters, drawers, engravers, and other craftsmen in South China and beyond. This mixed patronage, the blending of local techniques with Western techniques and materials, and the subjects reflecting the Portuguese administration of Macao, the presence of Westerners against the background of the Canton Trade System, and the broader Chinese context, all contribute to their particular transcultural character. This peripheral production, from an East-West contact zone, soon entered international art circuits and correspondingly serves as a specific case study within the field of global arts as these artworks have been publicly displayed, collected privately and publicly, and put up for sale at major auction houses ever since their creation.