“Seeds of Exchange: Canton and London in the 1700s” Exhibition at the Garden Museum

Beneath London’s gray February sky, on the banks of the Thames, the Garden Museum greets us with an archive that has broken 235 years of silence. The exhibition “Seeds of Exchange: Canton and London in the 1700s” re-establishes that delicate, green, and scientific bridge between what we now call Guangzhou (Canton) and the imperial capital of the era, London—bringing to light a forgotten collaboration buried on dusty shelves. This is not merely an aesthetic selection of botanical illustrations; it is the story of an intercontinental exchange of knowledge and cultural interaction that took place between 1766 and 1773.

The extraordinary triangle formed by English botanist John Bradby Blake, his Chinese counterpart Whang At Tong, and plant illustrator Mak Sau attempted, in a time when East and West still regarded one another with “exotic” curiosity, to build a shared world through the universal language of science. Presented for the first time in Britain after 235 years, these works reveal both the trade networks of an era and humanity’s unending passion for understanding nature. If you wish to breathe the fresh, curious, and exploratory air of the 18th century amid London’s misty streets, this exhibition offers far more than a museum visit: it is a time journey and tangible proof of a friendship with roots reaching deep.

In the 1770s, John Bradby Blake—a supercargo working for the East India Company—discovered the gardens hidden behind Canton’s high walls. He was in pursuit not only of commerce but of science. By cultivating Camellia japonica, kumquats, and mandarin seedlings in his own garden, he was laying the foundations of an unfinished masterpiece: “Compleat Chinensis.” Blake did not merely collect seeds; he meticulously recorded how they germinated and under what conditions they grew, sending both the plants and this knowledge back to London.

The exhibition unites Blake’s archive with botanical illustrations for the first time. This combination is not only a curatorial triumph but also feels like the completion of a 235-year-old puzzle.

The hidden hero of the exhibition is the Chinese artist Mak Sau, commissioned by Blake to document the plants of Canton. The thirty botanical illustrations that flowed from Mak Sau’s brush form the centerpiece of the show. These works represent the intersection of the West’s scientific need for cataloguing and the East’s refined artistic sensibility. From watermelons (Citrullus lanatus) to bitter melons (Momordica charantia), each drawing is not merely a representation of a plant, but evidence of how two different cultures reached agreement over a single living thing.

One of the most striking pieces is undoubtedly the portrait of Whang At Tong painted by the famous portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds. As Bradby Blake’s Chinese interlocutor and advisor, Whang At Tong embodies the human face of this international collaboration. Immortalized by Reynolds’s brush, this portrait offers an invaluable document of how a Chinese intellectual found a place in London’s art world at the time. It depicts not just a face, but the elegance of the knowledge that flowed between Canton and London.

Prepared in collaboration with the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia, the exhibition brings to light Bradby Blake’s research on Chinese plants, dictionaries, and maps. The Canton–English glossaries of botanical and culinary terms prove that the exchange of the period was not only botanical but also linguistic. Colorful potted flowers transported on riverboats and watercolor depictions of Canton at the time immerse the visitor in the vibrant yet serene atmosphere of the 18th century.

Exhibition Dates: February 11 – May 10, 2026

Location: Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London, SE1 7LB

Visiting Hours: Daily 10:00 – 16:00