China and Japan—John Thomson, Milton Miller, John Dudgeon, J.C. Watson | Album of early photographs, 1860s

China and Japan—John Thomson, Milton M. Miller, John Dudgeon, J.C. Watson, Charles Frederick Moore, and others?

Album of 120 early photographs of Beijing, Macao, Canton, Tientsin, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Ningpo, Chefoo and Nagasaki, 1860s

Oblong folio (248 x 380mm.), 120 photographs, comprising 119 albumen prints, and one salted paper print, mounted on 46 leaves, nearly all captioned in a contemporary hand in ink on the mounts, contemporary green roan-backed pebble grain green cloth, some damp-staining to lower corners of album leaves (not affecting photographs), backstrip detached and loosely inserted, binding slightly worn

A RARE ALBUM OF EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHINA, the majority being in the region of Beijing and Ningpo. The album also includes a 3-part panorama of Chefoo (mounted on separate leaves), and a 2-part panorama of the Great Wall of China (mounted on separate leaves).

The owner and compiler of this album was Walter George Hobhouse Cable, a British clerk in the Chinese Maritime Customs, who joined the service on 1 August 1862 as a student interpreter, and by the time of his untimely death in service of fever in January 1873 had attained the position of First-Class Clerk. Cable spent his career in the Maritime Customs in various locations from Swatow (1862) to Ningpo (1872), via Amoy (1864-67), Chefoo (1868) and Shanghai (1869-70). There was an active collecting market for photographs within the expatriate community in China, especially among diplomats and those working in the Maritime Customs who would have an excellent network of contacts with photographers including Charles Frederick Moore (1837-1916) at Ningpo and Dr John Dudgeon in Beijing.

A list of the photographs in this album is available on request to the department.

PROVENANCE:

Walter George Hobhouse Cable (fl. 1860s, died January 1873), who served in the Imperial Maritime Customs in China from 1 August 1862 to January 1873; signed on preliminary free endpaper "W.G.H. Cable"; thence in family ownership in England

LITERATURE:

China. Imperial Maritime Customs. Service List. Second issue: 1st August, 1876. Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General of Customs, 1877 (page 95 records W.G.H. Cable's dates of service and death)