Peking, Pechili province, China: three Manchu Ministers at the Office of Foreign Affairs, late Qing. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869.

  • Thomson, J. (John), 1837-1921.
Date:
1869
Reference:
19634i
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view Peking, Pechili province, China: three Manchu Ministers at the Office of Foreign Affairs, late Qing. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869.

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Credit

Peking, Pechili province, China: three Manchu Ministers at the Office of Foreign Affairs, late Qing. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

Three men seated, out of doors, with a rockery to the left, and the terrace of a house (or a gazebo?) behind them. The men on the left and right hold pipes, the central one rests his right arm on a table. A servant stands on the extreme right hand side. They are the three Manchu ministers at Office for Foreign Affairs: (left to right) Cheng Lin, Bao Jun and Wen Xiang. Of the three, Cheng Lin was the youngest member of the Office of Foreign Affairs, being not yet more than forty-five. Bao Jun, at the age of sixty-five, was also a member of the Grand Council and one of the Presidents of the Board of Finance. Wen Hsiang, born in Mukden in 1817, ranked next to Prince Gong in the Office of Foreign Affairs and had held the position since 1861. He was also a member of the Grand Council, President of the Board of Civil Service and Member of the Imperial Cabinet. A man of rare intellectual powers, coupled with his long experience in high office, Wen Hsiang was looked on as the most influential late Qing statesman

Publication/Creation

1869

Physical description

1 photograph : glass photonegative, wet collodion ; glass approximately 20.5 x 25.5 cm (8 x 10 in.)

Lettering

Chinese statesmen, Peking Bears Thomson's negative number: "693"

Notes

This is one of a collection of original glass negatives made by John Thomson. The negatives, made between 1868 and 1872, were purchased from Thomson by Sir Henry Wellcome in 1921

References note

China through the lens of John Thomson, 1868-1872, Beijing: Beijing World Art Museum, 2009, p. 21 (reproduced)

Reference

Wellcome Collection 19634i

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