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This piece was commissioned in relation to the return of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997. The requirement was to give expression to the trading relationships existing between east and west throughout the history of Hong Kong.

The centrepiece is the famous clipper ‘Cutty Sark’ whose heyday was in the early 1870’s towards the end of the period of tea trade races to the U.K. In addition there are two junks, one an ocean going junk, the other a more inshore/harbour trading junk.

We were responsible for production of the boats and the silver seas, as shown above, but not the plinths, albeit Tim Simmons, independently, did much of the wax sculpture for the plinth decoration. The plinth comprised a central elliptical unit for the Cutty Sark, and two side plinths of complex shape for the junks. Like the Columbus Fleet plinth this was designed to allow display of the three boats as one integrated unit or each boat separately.

Data
Sterling silver, figures gold plated.
Scale		1:180
Ships	Cutty Sark	stem to stern	14 inch (35.6cm)
		incl: bowsprit	18 inch (45.7cm)
	Junk I	stem to stern	8 inch (20.3cm)
	Junk II	stem to stern	7inch (17.8cm)
Plinth	Centre	black lacquer, silver with gold plate
		elliptical, 25 x 14.1 inch (63.5 x 35.6cm)
	Side (x 2)	black lacquer, silver with gold plate
		complex shape,15 x 12 inch (38 x 30.5cm)
	Integrated	53 inch (135cm) approx.

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