Chinese Ships

This watercolor depicts a 19th-century war "junk" (a typical sailboat from the Far East) and a "champatian" from the same period (a variety of sampan used in particular as a cutter by the coastguard).

The painting is part of a series of 92 works titled "Graphic History of Naval Construction" created by the pilot, researcher, painter, and Naval Museum restorer Rafael Monleón Torres (1843–1900) during the final 2 decades of the 19th century.

The drawings have a similar formal structure: in the center is a watercolor about 32 x 48 centimeters in size on top of a larger piece of white laid paper with an 8-centimeter border on each side. In this border, Monleón drew different pen studies of the boats featured in the main scene with accompanying explanatory text.

As a whole, the series represents a detailed study of the development of naval architecture from ancient forms of navigation to the most modern turn-of-the-century ships. Monleón also produced a handwritten dictionary, "Artistic Aspects of Naval Constructions," which is now held at the Naval Museum.