To the traders of the British East India Company, the scene in Canton harbor was in many ways similar to the bustling Thames River of London, for, like London, Canton was an inland river port. William Hickey, a visitor to Canton in 1769, compared these two great trading centers:

The scene upon the water [in Canton] is as busy as the Thames below London Bridge, with this difference, that instead of our square-rigged vessels of different dimensions you have junks...Nothing appears more extraordinary to the eyes of a stranger at Canton than the innumerable boats of different sizes with which the river is covered for many miles together.

The contrasts and similarities of these two trading centers that were described by Hickey can be seen in the exquisitely detailed scenes painted en grisaille in the border of this plate. Two panels, each of London from Southwark with London Bridge in the foreground and the Pearl River just below Canton, are combined with two smaller panels of gold and iron-red flowers.

Armorial dinner services were popular among wealthy Englishmen who ordered some four thousand of them over the years. Americans, however, largely eschewed this indulgence and only a few American services are truly armorial.