Portraits

Liang Shitai
Li Hongzhang
c.1875
Albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

Liang Shitai’s masterful portrait captures Li’s distinct authority and power. Li pensively looks away from the camera. It is as if the viewer is gaining a glimpse into the private thoughts of this important diplomat.

Li Hongzhang, one of the most powerful officials of the late Qing Dynasty, was a key figure in China’s industrial and military modernization. The politician, general, and diplomat served in key positions of the Imperial Court, including the premier viceroyalty of Zhili. He “rose to prominence in China as a brilliant general and then spent 25 years as the country’s preeminent diplomatic negotiator for the Qing Dynasty” (Xiaobing Li, China at War).

Unidentified Artist
Portrait of a Young Woman
c.1860
Albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

Lai Fong
Portrait of a Merchant
c.1870
Albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

Lai Fong
Actors
c.1870
Albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

William Saunders
Portrait of a Woman from Guangzhou
c.1865
Hand-colored albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

Thomas Child
Mongolian Lama
1870s
Albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

Thomas Child
Wedding Couple
1870s
Albumen print
22 cm x 29 cm

San Hing
Seated Woman
c.1860
Hand-colored albumen print, carte de visite
9 cm x 5 cm

Pun Lun Studio
Woman and Child
c.1870
Albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

A highlight of the Loewentheil Collection is its large selection of works by the Pun Lun Studio, a leading Chinese photography studio in Hong Kong. The studio was active from 1864 through the turn of the twentieth century with branches in Foochow (Fuzhou), Saigon, and Singapore. Pun Lun Studio’s early work is particularly rare because the studio’s negatives appear to have been destroyed in a studio fire in 1876. In addition to the portrait and topographical work, Pun Lun Studios assembled a series of genre photographs of life in China, a format that came out of the Chinese painting tradition.

This is a skillfully composed portrait of a woman carrying a child on her back. Though the Pun Lun Studio was a large and successful studio, most of the photographs attributed to the studio are small carte de visite portraits. This large-format masterpiece from Pun Lun’s genre series is a rare survival.

Liang Shitai
Portrait of a Governor
c.1870
Albumen print
29 cm x 22 cm

Sang Hing
Seated Woman
c.1860
Hand-colored albumen print, carte de visite
9 cm x 5 cm

Sitting next to a chrysanthemum, symbolising nobility, and wearing talons on her fingers, the subject of this photograph presumably came from a high status family. The color green used on the floor became common in Chinese photographs of this period. It had a symbolic function, suggesting health and prosperity, as well as an artistic one, making the reds in the picture appear more vivid.

Inexpensive, portable, and intimate, the carte de visite (or calling card) format flourished during the 1860s. Cartes could be collected, mounted in albums, easily shared with family or sent with letters. Hand-coloring was a special service for which studios charged extra. The extraordinary delicacy of this woman’s dress indicates this colorist was highly skilled. Most colorists were women, whose contributions remain largely anonymous.

Milton Miller
General’s Wife
1864
Albumen print
29 x 22 cm

Milton Miller’s photographs of Chinese models are among the finest artistic portraits in early photography of China. This imposing elderly woman wears an elaborately embroidered silk robe with a matching vest and skirt – the ceremonial garb of the wife of a Qing official. She gazes forward directly at the camera establishing a powerful connection with the viewer. “The sense of visual immediacy and the woman’s individualized appearance reconfirm the picture’s identity as a portrait and explain why this and similar images by Miller have been praised as ‘the most significant body of nineteenth-century Chinese official portraits’” (Wu Hung).

John Thomson
Portrait of Li Hongzhang
c.1870
Albumen print
10 cm x 10 cm