File:Portrait of a Captain of the British East India Company (by Spoilum).jpg

English: Spoilum (fl.c.1774-c.1805)

Portrait of a Captain of the British East India Company, bust length

oil and gold paint on canvas

oval

16 ½ x 13 ¼in. (40.8 x 33.6cm.)

in the original gilt-wood frame

A characteristic portrait by Spoilum, in its original gilt frame, closely similar to other portraits of officers of the East India Company marine, in costume (the blue jacket and gold buttons with the Company's lion emblem, with a jewelled cameo on the cravat) and format (bust length, with a lighter background to the left side of the sitter's face, in a framed oval). Compare the portraits with Martyn Gregory, 1991, cat.57, no.115 and 2008, cat.97, no.93.

Spoilum was the first Cantonese artist working for the western market to be identified. He is thought to be Guan Zuolin from the prefecture of Nanhai, in the western part of Canton, who travelled to Europe and America and opened a studio in Canton on his return to China. His work has immediate affinities with provincial 18th-century portraiture on the eastern seabord of the United States, suggesting he saw western portraiture on his travels. His earliest known work (a reverse glass painting) dates to the mid-1770s, and the first works in this oval format to the mid-1780s. He is thought to be the father of Lamqua (Guan Qiaochang), whose early portraits share the format and style of Spoilum's mature portraiture.