Chinese export paintings, made by Chinese artists between the 18th and 19th centuries, were specially for export to Europe and North America.These works blend Chinese and European painting techniques and include Chinese traditional customs, occupations, manufacturing and trade, ships, flora, and fauna of late Qing Dynasty, which formed a unique artistic style. This paper introduces a collaborative research project between University College London(UCL) and the Victoria and Albert Museum(V&A), which proposes a new digital humanities research model to study Chinese export art. Firstly, the research quantitatively identifies similar painting themes and group them into different artists/workshops. Secondly, it employs deep learning methods to classify 2350 export painting images by theme. Finally, the study conducts iconographic annotation and in-depth analysis to uncover the thematic distribution and evolution of Chinese export paintings created by Chinese artists from the 18th to 19th centuries. The findings reveal significant thematic differences in V&A's collection of export paintings before and after 1840, which provide data support for research on Chinese export paintings and global art history. Additionally, the study contributes a new digital humanities research model for future research on export art. These findings deepen the understanding of Chinese export painting themes and explore new research methodology for analysing the unique process of Sino-Western cultural integration.