Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s latest exhibit, ‘China from China,’ explores early U.S.-China trade, now on view

China from China: Porcelain and Stories of Early American Trade
Lyman Allyn Art Museum • 625 Williams St, New London, CT 06320
June 14, 2025 – September 14, 2025

China from China: Porcelain and Stories of Early American Trade

Lam Qua (Chinese, 1801–1860), A Hong Merchant, ca. 1835–40, oil on canvas in the original Chinese gilded frame, 28 7/8 x 21 ¾ inches, Collection of Ginger H. and H. Richard Dietrich III.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces the opening of China from China: Porcelain and Stories of Early American Trade, on view from June 14 through Sept. 14, 2025.

This exhibition explores the early U.S.–China trade, with a focus on Connecticut merchants and sailors who participated in this transpacific exchange, helping to shape American identity, industry, and global presence.

With over a hundred examples of fine and decorative arts, China from China reveals how cultural and economic trade between China and the United States helped shape a young nation and set the stage for a geopolitical relationship that endures today.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the Lyman Allyn and the Dietrich American Foundation, showcasing the Dietrich collection of Chinese export porcelain and paintings—a portion of which was exhibited at the Chinese American Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2022. Expanding on this material, the exhibition also features objects from the Lyman Allyn’s own collection and loans from regional public and private collections.

The early days of trade between the United States and China came just after the nation’s hard-won independence from Great Britain in 1783. With resources depleted by war and shifts in international commerce, America set its sights on China, long a source of fascination and coveted imports like tea, porcelain, and silk.

Embarking from New York Harbor in February 1784, the ship Empress of China set sail with a hold full of American trade goods and an entrepreneurial spirit. The success of that first voyage set in motion a vast enterprise that, over the following decades, produced incredible wealth and cultural exchange, helped shape national identity, and forged the first ties in the complex relationship between the two countries. Along the way there was risk, reward, and tragedy.

At the heart of the early China trade story are individuals—American traders and hong merchants, sailors and artists, diplomats and scholars—who shaped the course of history in ways both small and large.

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Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s latest exhibit, ‘China from China,’ explores early U.S.-China trade, now on view