Afong Moy Presents Chinese Objects for the Home

Abstract

Near the time Afong Moy arrived in New York, the Hone family was planning a move to a new home. Though there is no evidence that they purchased the Carneses’ Chinese goods that they saw in Afong Moy’s salon for their new residence, Philip Hone and his wife Catharine, who attended the presentation, were potential customers for the objects displayed. These objects included household articles such as tea and sewing equipage (thread winders and tea caddies), rice paper paintings, blinds, matting, feather dusters, and fly whisks, as well as comestibles and drugs (rhubarb); most were objects that Afong Moy also used in China.