View of Macao in China

The artwork

Bottom right, in the churchyard of São Francisco, a Franciscan friar spreads his arms as he talks with a Chinese man wearing a long queue: this is Macao in 1787, drawn from life by the artist of an expedition that never came home. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• Macao in 1787, with the church of São Paulo still whole, in black and white.
• Between two bookcases or in a study, the black and white goes well with wood and books.
• A gift for anyone who has lived in Asia or loves great voyages.

Jean-François de La Pérouse's two ships, sailing round the world at the wish of Louis XVI, reached Macao in January 1787. Macao was a Portuguese settlement on Chinese territory, and Gaspard Duché de Vancy, the voyage's official artist, drew it from that churchyard. In September 1787, in Kamchatka, La Pérouse entrusted logbooks and drawings to Barthélemy de Lesseps, who crossed Siberia and reached France a year later. The ships, meanwhile, left Botany Bay in March 1788 and vanished; almost forty years later their remains were found on the reefs of Vanikoro, in the Solomon Islands. Duché de Vancy had disappeared with them.

The view is plate 40 of the Atlas du voyage de La Pérouse, printed in Paris in 1797 by the Imprimerie de la République; below the image are the title, “Vue de Macao en Chine”, and the signatures of Duché de Vancy and of the engraver, Louis Joseph Masquelier. Across the bay you can make out the Monte fort and the church of São Paulo, still whole: a fire in 1835 left only its façade standing. The copy reproduced here, uncoloured, comes from the atlas in the David Rumsey Map Collection.

Between two bookcases or in the study of someone who loves to travel, it is a gift for anyone who has lived in Asia or collects the great voyages of the eighteenth century. And in the churchyard the friar and the man with the queue are still talking.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in)
With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass