Image from the book: Imperial China, Photographs from 1850-1912. Available on the website of the Australian National University here. [You can download the complete book as pdf file].
Photo by John Thomson.
The shop was at 60 Queen's Road Central.
Update: In an article in the China Mail 1868-09-12, this photo is advertised. So the photo was taken in 1868.
Date picture taken
1868
Gallery
Shows place(s)
Comments
Wah Loong, 60 Queen’s Road,…
Wah Loong, 60 Queen’s Road, under the rubric of a “Fancy Goods Store” in list of principal Chinese Hongs in Hong Kong
Source: The Directory and Chronicle for China, Japan and Corea etc, 1873, page 229
In the 1868 Directory the address was at 56 Queen’s Road. Did the shop move or was the street numbering altered subsequently? At least the photo is definitely after 1868.
Wah Loong is listed in the …
Wah Loong is listed in the "Chronicle" for 1869 at 60, Queen's Road. This issue of the Chronicle is dated January 11, 1869. Therefore it gives the location in 1868, likely end of this year.
Cumwo was a silversmith
Cumwo was a silversmith:
"Karl Müller's latest travel"
In the German journal "Die Natur" (Nature") from 14 December 1870, the stay of the traveller Karl Müller (unknown to me) in Hong Kong is reported. Müller arrived on the 5 March 1870 after 64 days travelling from San Francisco and stayed a couple of days. He sent letters as well as photos [these are not shown in the journal] to the journal, and one of the editors used them for the article.
It is very likely that Müller bought the photos and did not take them himself. This is quite obvious regarding the shop of Wah Loong. The text (translated from old-fashioned German):
.....But a completely different view is taken of one of the Chinese stalls that characterise Hong Kong! It is known that in the Chinese part of the city there are around 60,000 Chinese who sell their wares in numerous shops. They all deal in ivory ware, crepe shawls, paintings, lacquered ware, etc. One of the pictures shows the Wah Loong and Cumwo firm from Canton, 80 miles away, with their shop opening onto the street, at and behind which the sellers, armed with paper fans and watching over the street, calmly wait for the buyer. Their treasures are set up floor by floor behind them, and the English painted sign - Wah Loong from Canton, dealer in silks, Crape Shawls, Ivory and Lacquered Ware Matting, No. 60. Queen's Road - shows that the company itself deals in silk, although it does not consider it beneath its dignity to offer ship models, vases, jugs, small carved figures, etc. It is a life so rich and original, so different from that of Europe, that after looking through these masses of pictures we find it completely understandable that our traveller could not come to his senses in the face of so much novelty......