Category Archives: History of photography in China

Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking Part 2

Concluding his overview of the recently digitised Pirkis Collection, Dr Andrew Hillier digs further into these 400 cartes de visite to consider what the collection tells us about the legation world and the European presence in Peking more generally during … Continue reading

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Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking

A recent approach to HPC revealed a treasure trove of material relating to life in the British Legation, Peking, in the 1870s and early 1880s, but, as Dr Andrew Hillier explains, making sense of the photographs can be a challenge.  … Continue reading

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Location/Dislocation – Admiral Keppel, the Chinese Buddha at Sandringham and three key photographs

Jamie Carstairs (Special Collections, University of Bristol Library) is researching the work of Charles Frederick Moore (1838-1916). In this post, Photodetective Carstairs reinvestigates a photographic cold case… In my mind, three golden Buddhas lined up in a row, as if … Continue reading

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Charles Frederick Moore’s photographs of the ruins of the European-style palaces (西洋楼) at the Yuanmingyuan (圆明园)

Jamie Carstairs (Senior Digitisation Officer, Special Collections, University of Bristol Library) is researching the work of Charles Frederick Moore (1838-1916), and here discusses Moore’s photographs of the ruins of the European-style, baroque palaces at the Yuanmingyuan. When the vast and … Continue reading

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Jamie Carstairs on Remembering John Thomson in Edinburgh

Last week a plaque was unveiled on John Thomson’s childhood home in Edinburgh, Scotland, in his centenary year. How did it get there? In 2018, the John Thomson Commemoration Group* formed to restore John Thomson’s grave in south London. During … Continue reading

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Guest post: Spaniards in the treaty ports: Archivo China-España and Juan Mencarini

Our latest post comes from Xavier Ortells-Nicolau, an adjunct professor at the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and English Studies, Universitat de Barcelona. His recent work has focused on images of China in late nineteenth and early twentieth century … Continue reading

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A Chan (Ya Zhen) in Guangzhou

This nice view of a commercial street in Guangzhou (Canton), that has been on the Historical Photographs of China website for a while, has been identified as the work of A Chan (雅真 Ya Zhen), an early Chinese photographer who … Continue reading

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The John Gurney Fry Collection: tea, silver and chocolates

Jamie Carstairs, who manages the Historical Photographs of China Project, writes about a collection just added to the HPC site. Last year, an album of 124 photographs  was generously donated by Richard Ambrose to the Historical Photographs of China project, care of … Continue reading

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Commemorating John Thomson: Edinburgh to install a Bronze Plaque

Jamie Carstairs, who manages the Historical Photographs of China Project, nominated John Thomson for a plaque in Edinburgh. The independent plaques panel at Heritage Environment Scotland (HES) announced yesterday that a plaque to commemorate the Scottish photographer John Thomson (1837-1921), is … Continue reading

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Charles Frederick Moore (1837-1916), a photographer in China

Jamie Carstairs, who manages the Historical Photographs of China Project, follows up  serendipitous events, leading to a rabbit hole, in which a ‘new’ nineteenth century China photographer was found. ‘Mr. C. F. Moore, in the service of the Customs at Ningpo, … Continue reading

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