Category Archives: Uncategorized

M is for Ming!

‘Ming: 50 years that changed China’, the British Museum’s autumn exhibition opens today. Photographs in Historical Photographs of China of surviving artefacts from the 1368-1644 Ming dynasty include tourist silliness like this early 1900s shot of a visitor posing with one of … Continue reading

Posted in Alphabet China, Exhibition, Exhibitions, Photograph of the day | Tagged , , | Comments Off on M is for Ming!

Chess in Canton

The Wellcome Institute announced recently that all historical images that are out of copyright and held by Wellcome Images are being made freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution licence.  Search for, download and study images by, for example, John … Continue reading

Posted in Elsewhere on the net, Exhibition, Photograph of the day, Photographers | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Chess in Canton

Making popcorn

The Historical Photographs of China project team were delighted to see in a recently digitised album a sequence of three photographs showing popcorn being made the Chinese way, c.1938:   When this blogger was in Shanghai in 2011, I photographed … Continue reading

Posted in Elsewhere on the net, Photograph of the day | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Making popcorn

Introducing two new photographers

The ‘Historical Photographs of China’ team was very pleased to be invited by the Arts & Humanities Research Council to contribute a set of images to its recently launched Online Gallery. We decided to use the opportunity to showcase a … Continue reading

Posted in Elsewhere on the net, Photographers | Comments Off on Introducing two new photographers

D is for …. Duke

The Duke of Connaught, to be precise: Prince Arthur, Queen Victoria’s seventh child (and third son). Connaught served as Commander in Chief of the British Army in Bengal in 1886-90. As was increasingly common in the later nineteenth century, he … Continue reading

Posted in Alphabet China | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on D is for …. Duke

E is for … ebay (and eouch)

For a change this post is about photographs that have been lost. A recent sale on Ebay of some materials found during a house clearance in southwestern England, left traces online of what seems to be a historically interesting voyage … Continue reading

Posted in Alphabet China, Elsewhere on the net, Photographers | Tagged , , | Comments Off on E is for … ebay (and eouch)

Smiles and coracles, 1938

This snapshot of (I think) some boatside begging, was taken or acquired by Edgar Taylor, who served in the British Royal Navy, and was possibly taken at Hankow (Hankou, Wuhan) on the Yangzi. We do not know much about the … Continue reading

Posted in Digitisation, Elsewhere on the net, Photograph of the day | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Smiles and coracles, 1938

'Picturing China' in Beijing

A friend of the project visiting Beijing provides further images of the display at the J.W. Marriott, organised by the British Embassy.The exhibition, ‘Picturing China 1870-1950: Photographs from British collections’, or ‘1870-1950:英国收藏的中国影像’ runs until 7th April. It is the Qingming … Continue reading

Posted in Exhibition, Exhibitions | Tagged | Comments Off on 'Picturing China' in Beijing

Darwent's Shanghai

We have been quiet recently, but busy, preparing a modest exhibition which responds to a favourite in our collections, the photographs of the Reverend Charles Ewart Darwent, minister of the Union Church Shanghai (新天安堂) from 1899-1919. As well as publishing … Continue reading

Posted in Digitisation, Exhibitions | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Darwent's Shanghai

Back to the past

Prior to 1949, and again more recently, foreign tourists avidly visited the marvellous sights in China.  The tourist trail would include the Ming Tombs, just forty kilometres north of Peking (Beijing), here being explored in the 1920s, by donkey in … Continue reading

Posted in Elsewhere on the net, Photograph of the day | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Back to the past