Chretien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes published his account of his seventeen years in China as a merchant and ambassador. He was the interpreter to Isaac Titsign, the Dutch ambassador to the court of Qianlong, Emperor of China. He returned to France in 1801 and his account of his life in China was published as "Voyage a Peking,Manille ... " 1808. The copperplate engravings were engraved by Deseve in Paris.
Bateau de Plaisance a Quanton. (A pleasure boat on the Canton River) depicts a typical floating brothel or flower boat popular in Canton in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Copperplate engraving.
330 x 190 mm. (Plateline).
1808