Chine

1920 · réf. 152667 — China: 1920. From palace to park lake to shining sea A collection of 230 vernacular photographs recording a couple's trip to Beijing Jinan and Qingdao a decade after the abdication of the last Qing emperor. Arranged chronologically the album combines landscape and architectural views with candid shots of the travellers and the people they met. The appearance of many easily identifiable landmarks more than compensates for a lack of captions. The travellers begin their holiday in Beijing recently the site of the May Fourth demonstrations. The first 35 images capture the serenity of the Summer Palace once an imperial retreat with images showing the East Palace Gate and the exterior Hall of Joyful Longevity. The visitors strike jaunty individual poses on a stone lion and ride regally on the back of a bronze deer statue. The lady is captured from a distance on a balcony overlooking the Kunming Lake the largest body of water in the palace complex with the famous 17-arch bridge visible in the background. Like many before them these travellers are drawn to such architectural wonders as the Glowing Clouds and Holy Land Archway as well as the full-size marble boat restored by the Empress Cixi in the 19th century using funds allocated for outfitting a real navy. Several vistas of the lake show its solitude and remoteness - qualities accentuated by the palace's transition in 1914 from a working royal residence into a publicly accessible monument to China's imperial past. Until 1924 the Forbidden City remained the private residence of the last emperor Pu Yi and this album thus contains only a few images taken in the accessible outer court. The travellers find more freedom however in nearby Beihai Park climbing up to the imposing White Pagoda and snapping several views of Beijing from on high. Also captured here are two soldiers on duty by one of the bridge archways as well as the classic view of the pagoda looming over the park's picturesque lake. China's rapidly growing network of railway lines afforded travellers conveniences unknown even a couple of decades before. The visitors record their journey on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou line the first stretch of railway built by the Chinese government rather than foreign investors alighting near Nankou. There the lady poses in a sedan chair and later with three young children fascinated by a camera held by one of the couple's acquaintances. Visiting the Ming tombs affords many opportunities to photograph and be photographed with the famous stone animal sculptures while in one image the lady lies comfortably in a tree. Back on the train they travel to the Great Wall near Badaling and Qinglongqiao. A dozen pictures taken on the wall show the brickwork in a state of disrepair as was common with sections of the wall by this time and the travellers take refreshments on a level section with some local children for company. A well-earned rest on the return train refreshes them for a visit to the Jade Peak Pagoda on Jade Spring Hill today the site of residences for top political leaders with the camera capturing several nice landscape views of the pagoda and a temple desecrated inside. Following further excursions to the unmissable Temple of Heaven and the Cishou Pagoda they follow the steel rails to Jinan admiring the Yangtze River and waterfront industries in the company of local perhaps warlord troops. The holiday ends in the Japan-controlled coastal resort of Qingdao its station platform teeming with adult and child passengers and its seafront peppered with colonial architecture including the Grand Hotel. The final photographs commemorate time spent at the beach and climbing a nearby mountain most likely Laoshan - the relaxing denouement to a holiday of considerable excitement. Landscape folio 260 x 335 mm. Original brown pebble-grain leatherette tied with brown cord through punch holes front cover lettered in gilt within blind frame covers lined with black moiré-patterned cloth 52 black card leaves with 230 gelatin silver photographs each c. 75 x 130 mm mounted with silver photo corners first blank with pencilled title "China 1920". With 3 gelatin silver photographs 63 x 40 mm loosely inserted. 2 photographs no longer present. Photographs clear most with silver mirroring and a few with corners lifting image loose from its mount and another partially split vertically a few leaves beginning to split at gutter couple of expertly repaired tears: a very good example. hardcover