[Portrait of T'sow-Chaoong]

Boston’s short-lived Chinese Museum, which opened on September 8, 1845, and closed in 1847, was created on the heels of the Treaty of Wanghia, a diplomatic agreement between the United States and China. An experiment in cultural understanding, the museum attempted to illuminate Chinese character and institutions with the help of two Cantonese cultural ambassadors: the poet and music teacher, Le-Kaw-hing; and the “Writing Master,” T’sow-Chaoong, who is pictured here. Elegantly posed beside a porcelain vase of cut flowers, T’sow-Chaong holds a fan in one hand and a daguerreotype in the other; these attributes, in addition to his long fingernails, emphasize his status as a gentleman and scholar. At the museum, he demonstrated calligraphy and provided visitors, including the poet Emily Dickinson, with calling cards on which he wrote their names in Chinese symbols.