HAND-COLOURED PANORAMAS
[BEIJING.]
[Cover title:] ‘The most interesting views of Peiping’.
[C. 1900–1910.]
4to album, with 38 hand-coloured gelatin silver prints c. 95 x 260 mm (including 14 vertical panoramas) on black stiff paper mounts, with corner guards, printed captions in English below; the first and last leaves of album detached, withal in very good condition; contemporary black textured cloth album, cover lettered gilt ‘Photograph’s, printed paper cover label, double-punched at left edge and secured with black cord, glazed embossed black endpapers.
A very unusual commercial album of Beijing, with thirty-eight hand-coloured scenes of the city, probably taken using a swing-lens panoramic camera.
Included amongst the scenes photographed are the Forbidden City, the Winter and Summer Palaces (including the Camel Back and 17 Arches Bridges), the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall, and two funeral processions. The vertical panoramas are largely of pagodas, often framed by trees and water.
