This painting stretches 12.3 meters by 0.4 meters, and depicts daily life in 18th century Suzhou, the artist's native city, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor after he returned from an inspection trip to the south. Belonging to a genre called Handscrolls (手捲), the viewer is intended to place it on a table, and slowly unroll the painting from right to left, carefully admiring each new scene as it is revealed.

In the 1950s, the painting was retitled to "Prosperous Suzhou"

European art and its techniques like linear perspective became increasingly influential in China the 18th and 19th centuries. Skillfully composed, Prosperous Suzhou combines Western linear perspective with traditional Chinese compositional devices. [OP's Tangent] Despite the trend to fear and exoticize China today, China can in many contexts be considered as a western society at this point. Chinese audiences embrace James Joyce, Romantic european composers, and Scandinavian design. Regarding rationalism and empiricism, there are 1.87 million Chinese scientists working on cutting edge developments and publishing in English journals, regarding politics, it shouldn't be forgotten that communism is firmly based in the European philosophical tradition, and a communist dictatorship modeled on European parties is amongst the highest development of European political theory.