This paper aims to conduct a historical study of materials related to Portrait of An Qi in His Garden (安麓村小像), which is in the collection of Weng Wango (翁萬戈), a Chinese collector in the United States. Based on its findings, this study will suggest a new perspective on An Qi (安岐), a famous collector of the early Qing dynasty. Previous studies discussed An Qi and his collection of paintings and calligraphy based on his book Moyuan huiguan (墨緣彙觀), an annotated catalogue of the paintings or calligraphy he had seen or possessed, and therefore they tended to present a limited perception that the works collected by An Qi only included those recorded in the catalogue. However, this paper aims to further examine Portrait of An Qi in His Garden in an effort to discover a new viewpoint towards understanding An Qi by highlighting a different aspect about his collection-that is, how the art collector built relationships with his contemporaries, and how he commissioned, sponsored and collected paintings and calligraphic works of famous artists of the era. Firstly, this paper studied the background behind the creation and collection of Portrait of An Qi in His Garden . Based on An Qi ’s status as a merchant and the dualistic status of Wang Hui ( 王翬) as both a scholar and a professional painter, this paper focused upon the mutual influences between the two men. Furthermore, this paper suggests that their friendship resulted in An Qi directly commissioning and requesting Wang Hui to produce specific paintings, and also that An Qi collected Wang Hui’s paintings both from the painter himself and from indirect channels such as Cai Qi (蔡琦). Secondly, this paper analyzes the relations between Portrait of An Qi in His Garden and Gu Shui Tsao Tang (沽水草堂), An Qi’s private garden located in Tianjin, in order to explain how the culture of gardens during the early Qing dynasty developed under the leadership of the merchant classes and spurred the emergence and development of landscape-portrait paintings, a new genre derived from landscape and portrait paintings. In addition, this study highlights the notion that this new genre of paintings was commensurate with the principle of ownership as advocated by northern merchants of early Qing dynasty. Finally, as the political and economic center of the early Qing dynasty gradually moved toward the northern regions, merchants of northern China influenced the emergence of new forms and styles in paintings by sponsoring, commissioning and collecting works as a newly emerging and influential group of art collectors. This, in turn, created a new geographical trend of “The Transfer of Southern Paints to North,” ( 南畫北渡) ultimately and completely transforming the history of Chinese paintings.