In the late 18th century European gardeners and plantsmen and women became more and more interested in plants from China. Many of our most familiar plants were introduced from China during this period. This was a consequence of trading contacts and plant hunting expeditions.

Collectors and botanists commissioned Chinese artists in the trading ports of Canton and Macao to paint Chinese plants. They gave the artists examples of European illustrations to copy and trained them in the conventions of Western botanical drawing. Although the Chinese artists were adept copyists, their drawings and watercolours can easily be distinguished from those by European artists. They tend to use a limited number of flat tones. Instead of producing a generalised image of the species they were representing, they usually made a literal portrait of a single specimen. This tendency is evident in this study. Each damaged leaf has been carefully and precisely represented. Such details were irrelevant for the purposes of identification and classification.