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En route to Japan in 1853, the Perry Expedition stopped in Guangdong, the historic center of China’s foreign trade. Anchored in the Pearl River, expedition artist Wilhelm Heine sketched arguably one of the most famous pagodas in the world at the time: the Whampoa Pagoda.

Matthew Perry noted the religious significance of the Pazhou Pagoda, as it was known in China, but also emphasized its value as a landmark, as ships “steer and anchor by its bearings.” Under the Canton System, foreign vessels often waited months at the Whampoa anchorage for Chinese cargo.

Heine’s paintings were later converted into sepia and hand-tinted stone lithographs to illustrate the official U.S. government report on the mission, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan (1856).

Because foreign ships spent long periods at Whampoa, the nine-story pagoda became familiar to many merchants and sailors. It also emerged as a visual emblem of China, appearing in numerous paintings, news illustrations, and on decorative objects such as porcelain and hand fans.

The octagonal brick pagoda, built in 1600 and rising more than 60 meters, was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. For more on the visual importance of the Whampoa Pagoda, see Peter Perdue’s essay on the Canton System for MIT’s Visualizing Culture: tinyurl.com/46xrpkxf.

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