Books

First edition of the photographer's magnum opus and one of the most extensive visual records of Qing China. In this magnificent publication, Thomson combines breathtaking landscapes with haunting portraiture, cementing his position as a trailblazing Victorian photojournalist. As Thomson (1837-1921) writes in his introduction, "my design in the accompanying work is to present a series of pictures of China and its people, such as shall convey an accurate impression of the country I traversed as well as of the arts, usages, and manners which prevail in different provinces of the Empire. With this intention, I made the camera the constant companion of my wanderings". He travelled over 6,500 kilometres between 1868 and 1872, sailing along the Pearl and Min rivers to Fuzhou and Beijing, as well as up the great Yangtze River. Many of the key treaty ports, towns, and cities are illustrated, including Hong Kong, Hainan, Macao, Taiwan, Shantou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Jiujiang, and Hangzhou. As a pioneer in the field of photojournalism, he also visited areas that had been relatively unexplored by Westerners due to travel restrictions. Images show the dress of different classes and ethnic groups, including the elaborate coiffures of middle-class women and distinctions between Han and Manchu dress. He also records the cultural practice of foot binding. From another perspective, the work records China in a period of crisis, where population growth put pressure on food and resources, which led to poverty, particularly in rural areas. Photographs of foundling hospitals, orphans, and beggars combine with a record of 'small trades' and pictures of anonymous individuals who could not pay for their portraits. Thomson learned the scientific principles of photography in the early 1850s as an apprentice to a maker of optical instruments. He used the wet collodion process, invented in 1848, which required him to erect a darkroom tent wherever he stopped to take photographs, as the entire process from coating to development had to be done before the plate dried. This type of photography created sharper images than the previously used tintypes or daguerreotypes. Additionally, the photographer could make multiple prints from a single negative. He showed a keen interest in how the art of photography was advancing during his career and wrote about his own role in championing the use of photography in exploration and journalism: "lack of time and opportunity constrains the gifted traveller, too often to trust to memory for detail in his sketches, and by the free play of fancy he fills in and embellishes his handiwork until it becomes a picture of his own creation. An instantaneous photograph would certainly rob his effort of romance, but the merit would remain of his carrying away a perfect mimicry of the scene presented, and enduring evidence of work faithfully performed" (Thomson, p. 670). Parr & Badger I 32; not in Lust or Löwendahl. John Thomson, "Photography and Exploration", Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, vol. 13, no. 11, November 1891, pp. 669-675. Four vols, folio. Publisher's purple morocco-grain cloth professionally rebacked with the original spines laid down, front covers lettered in gilt within two elaborate gilt borders, also with large gilt vignette of the "National University, Peking" (reproduced from plate 9 in vol. IV), beveled boards, blue surface-paper endpapers, all edges gilt. With 218 collotypes on 96 plates, each with tissue guard (some captioned). Cloth neatly refurbished in places, lightly scuffed with a few marks, edges bumped, occasional foxing or finger soiling. A very good copy of a work rarely encountered in collectible condition.