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A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 1
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 2
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 3
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 4
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 5
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 6
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 7
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 8
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 9
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 10
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 11
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 12
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 13
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 14
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 15
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 16
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 17
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 18
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 19
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 20
A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations Circa 1880 image 21
The Property of a Lady 女士藏品
Lot 336

A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations
Circa 1880

Fine Chinese Art
8 November 2012, 10:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £13,750 inc. premium

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A rare group of photographs, some signed Thomas Child, including views of the Yuanming Yuan and other locations

Circa 1880
Comprising thirty-eight photographs, variously depicting the Yuanming yuan, Wanshou shan (Longevity Hill) in the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Marble Bridge and the Chinese Maritime Customs cruisers, each photograph with written description at the bottom, mounted.
The largest 29.5cm x 22cm (11½in x 8 2/3in)

Footnotes

Provenance: James Russel Brazier, Chief Secretary of the Imperial Maritime Customs, China, from 1899.
His daughter Helen Hope Brazier (1899-1999) (who had the book by S.Hoe, Women At the Siege, Peking 1900, Oxford, 2000, dedicated to her memory as 'the last survivor of the Western women in Peking' at the time of the Boxer Rebellion)
Thence by descent in a Scottish private collection.

約1880年 相片三十八張(部份包括Thomas Child署名、圓明園景及其他地點)

來源: James Russel Brazier，自1899年起乃大清皇家海關總稅務司總理大臣
Helen Hope Brazier (1899-1999)，James Russel Brazier的女兒（S.Hoe著有Women At the Siege, Peking 1900一書,牛津,2000年，以紀念她是太平天國時期「於北京最後的西方女性生還者」）
於蘇格蘭私人收藏繼承下去



The photographs were taken between 1877-78 by the Englishman Thomas Child, who worked as a gas engineer for the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs throughout his practice years as a photographer of old Beijing. In 1877 Child spent whole days with his servants in expeditions to the Yuanmingyuan, or Old Summer Palace, which were planned and prepared several days in advance.

His photographs are perhaps the most important in recording the architecture of Beijing at that time, and helped to create a new image of China in foreign eyes; the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan in 1860 by the Allied British and French slowly came to be seen not simply as a loss to Chinese culture, but to a sense of culture more widely.

See Regine Thiriez, Barbarian Lens: Western Photographers of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces, London, 1998.

Additional information

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