Bound in blue silk cloth, sewn Chinese-style in rosewood boards engraved with Chinese characters, they contained 120 albumen and other prints, mostly from the period 1875-1883 and some signed in the negative T. Child. Included are views of the British Legation Fire Brigade, the ruins of the Summer Palace, the Residence of Sir T. F. Ward, the Porcelain Pagoda and the ruined Jesuit Observatory in Peking. Most of the photographs are titled in English, but the second album has additional titles in Chinese.
The albums were part of a collection of maps and prints that once belonged to Herbert Francis Brady, who first went to China as a
student interpreter in 1876 and who was appointed Assistant Consul General at Hankow in 1901. From this same source came a coloured manuscript map of the foreign residences in Shanghai, drawn up in 1849, shortly after the five treaty ports had been opened and the city was undergoing rapid expansion. The map was sold at £2200.
Chinese photograph albums
TWO albums of 19th century Chinese photographs assembled by a British diplomat sold for £5200 in a general antiques sale held by Sworders at Stansted Mountfitchet, on March 30.
