China and Hong Kong—Thomas Child and others | Album of photographs, 1887

China and Hong Kong—Thomas Child and others

Album of 54 photographs. 1887

Oblong folio (280 x 375mm.), 54 albumen prints (mostly c. 220 x 290mm., 5 larger folding panoramas, each c. 200 x 580mm.), mounted on card, 16 captioned 'T. Child', 2 captioned 'Zangaki', others by unidentified artists, some with manuscript captions on mounts, a few with printed paper captions loosely inserted, contemporary black morocco gilt, "H. J. R. | 1887" stamped in gilt to upper cover, edges gilt, light blue endpapers, some fading to photographs, mounts with dust-soiling and browning at extremities, spine frayed and partially detached, upper cover detached, extremities rubbed

A good selection of views and street scenes, principally of China and Hong Kong, including folding panoramas of Hong Kong, with 2 further photographs of Egypt. 16 of the photographs in this album are the work of English engineer Thomas Child (1841-1898), a pioneering photographer of Peking (modern-day Beijing) in the 1870s and 1880s, at a time when few other photographers were active there. Pezzati notes that by the time Child arrived in Beijing in 1870, there were "still only around 100 foreigners living there", with "[t]he city itself [...] rarely photographed" (Penn Museum: Early Photographs of China).

LITERATURE:

Pezzati, "Penn Museum: Early Photographs of China In the Archives", 2017