China Trade Painting - Tea Series

Packing the tea leaves under the supervision of a European. Several workers place and tamp the tea leaves inside the chests, under the watchful eye of a European trader who, in this case, appears together with a hong (a kind of mercantile mandarinate) merchant, seated at a pedestal table.
China Trade paintings were made for the export market from the late 18th to the mid-19th century.
Joana Belard da Fonseca, in the Catalogue Portuguese Presence in Asia, Museu do Oriente, 2008, p. 161