About the artist:

George Henry Mason (1770-1851) was a British army officer, Major in the late 102nd Regiment of Foot (Royal Madras Fusiliers) raised by the East India Company, 1795, and then Lietenant-Colonel in 1801. Mason had travelled to Canton in 1789. It was one of only two cities in China that outsiders could legally visit at the time, and Mason relished the opportunity to provide "partial instruction and general amusement" about an "exotic" foreign land to a fascinated but parochial audience of armchair tourists in England. He became an author of two influential works, The Costume of China (1800) and The Punishments of China (1801).