English: The China War 1857, three of HM Ships bombarding and ships’ boats inshore (1857), is one of nine watercolours made during the China War by Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton, from sketches by the Hon Albert Denison Somerville Denison (1835-1903), second son of the first Lord Londesborough, who served as second mate and subsequently acting lieutenant on the sloop Hornet 1856-9 and briefly as acting lieutenant on Sir Michael Seymour’s flagship HMS Calcutta. During this period Denison was involved in the fighting in the approaches to Canton in January 1857, when he was wounded, and in the attack on the Chinese war junks on 1 June 1857, both of which feature in this collection of watercolours. This set of watercolours is likely to have been commissioned by Denison in the early 1860s, and were perhaps based on Denison’s sketches made on the spot.