James Ware (1859-1913), a merchant navy captain, turned to missionary work following his arrival in Shanghai.
Joining the service of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he converted a rented building into a chapel, learned to preach in the local dialect and contributed to translations of both the Old and New Testaments and the Ming dynasty epic The Journey to the West.
As part of the project, Ware commissioned itinerant Chinese artists to illustrate episodes of this famous tale of the monkey king that he used to draw comparisons between the Christian and the Chinese conceptions of life after death in front of his congregation.