The notes accompanying the State Library's acquisition of its punchbowl indicate that on 25February 1926, William Bowyer Honey, Keeper, Department of Ceramics, Victoria &amp; Albert Museum, had appraised this particular punchbowl. Honey concluded that the bowl was made in China during Emperor Chia Ch'ing's reign in 1796–1820. In 1757, foreign trade had been restricted to Canton. Chinese exports, consisting largely of tea, porcelain and silk, had to be paid for in silver. The European (and soon the American) presence was restricted to the Thirteen Factories known as hongs on the harbour of Canton (now known as Guangzhou). The Canton hongs themselves are frequently illustrated on punchbowls, known as hong bowls, whereas the portrayal of ports that traded with Canton – such as Sydney and New York – are extraordinarily rare. The Canton System lasted until the defeat of China's Qing dynasty by the British Empire in the first of the Opium Wars in 1842. Virtually no Chinese export porcelain was produced from 1839 to 1860 because of the Opium Wars. Canton hong trade was subsequently overshadowed by the rise of Hong Kong as a trading centre – territory ceded to the British as a consequence of China's military defeats – and the subsequent establishment of 80 Treaty ports along China's coast. The punchbowls therefore are a product made just before China's eclipse, commissioned in Canton, where they were painted and glazed by Chinese ceramic artists. The unpainted bowls, however, would have first been manufactured in Jingdezhan, a town by road from Canton, where pottery factories have operated for nearly 2,000 years, and still do today.