A treat at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin

© The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin

Only a few more days for readers in Ireland to see the exhibition China through the lens of John Thomson: 1868-1872, which comes to an end at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin on Sunday 26 February, before moving on to Northern Ireland.

The Chester Beatty Library is a gem in its own right, with valuable and exquisite works displayed in two permanent exhibitions: one covering the principal religions of the world and the other the arts used in the making of books, including printmaking and painting. The latter starts with a magnificent George Stubbs mezzotint of a tigress, acquired in 2007 from the Christopher Lennox-Boyd collection. Other prints of particular interest include etchings by 17th-century masters such as Abraham Bosse, Jacques Callot and Antonie Van Dyck. A collection of etchings by Romeyn de Hooghe (1692) of King William III's return from Ireland to Holland is a work by the anatomist and courtier Govaert Bidloo. A rare book illustrated by Raoul Dufy, Mon docteur le vin(Paris 1936), claims that wine prevents appendicitis by killing germs in the intestines and resists typhoid, infant sicknesses, and diabetes (the WellcomeLibrary has the 2003 English translation).

A remarkable story is told by a box of Manichaean manuscripts which were entrusted to a conservator in Berlin in the 1920s, were removed to Leningrad in 1945, went back to East Germany in the 1960s, and finally returned to the Chester Beatty Library after 1990. Among the most recent works is a print of the physician and fable-writer Lu Xun (1881-1936), of whom the Wellcome Library has also recently acquired a portrait: the portrait in the Chester Beatty Library (by Wu Biduan, 1998) is appropriately a woodcut, as Lu Xun championed the woodcut technique as the medium of the people.

The other exhibition, Sacred Traditions, also contains many works which have their counterparts in the Wellcome Library, such as Burmese parabaik and Jain cosmological paintings – as well of course as splendid Qur'an manuscripts and other unique works.

The John Thomson photographs on exhibition until Sunday complement the Chinese collections of the Chester Beatty Library, which shows its own related objects in showcases in the exhibition: they include a Chinese lady's shoes and 19th-century Chinese spectacles similar to those shown in the photographs. Outside the exhibition, the reading room of the Library has a fine Chinese lacquer ceiling(right) acquired in China by Chester Beatty, the founder of the Library.

Here's an article by the Irish travel writer Manchán Magan in the Irish Times about Chinese students from Birmingham visiting the exhibition in Dublin "to see their ancestors in the Chester Beatty Library". Admission is free, opening hours here, location here.

Mervyn Peake in China

At the weekend we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of the artist and writer Mervyn Peake (1911-1968). Most famous for his Gormenghast trilogy – the story of a hermetically sealed earldom decaying within the seams of arcane ritual – Peake often cited the influence of his childhood in China upon this sequence of novels.

The son of medical missionaries, Peake grew up speaking Mandarin in Tianjin, 70 miles south-east of Beijing. A time of warlords, where travel could still be by palanquin, the wondrous phantasmagoria of his childhood can be glimpsed in the photographs held by the Wellcome Library of the Victorian explorer John Thompson (1837-1921).

For the fancifully minded, the claustrophobic accretion of masonry that is Gormenghast is suggested in the photograph (above) of the Open Alter of Heaven in Beijing, and its crumbling acreage of towers and rooftops seen in the photograph (left) of the ruins of the Old Imperial Summer Palace.

The scope of Peake’s artistic commitment was vast and as an artist he illustrated works from Alice in Wonderland to this study of witchcraft. As the no less fantastical photographs of John Thomson show, the hinterland of Peake’s imagination was rich indeed.

A Wellcome Chinese New Year in Glasgow

Inaugurating the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, the exhibition China through the lens of John Thomson 1868-1872 opened at the Burrell Collection in Glasgow on 4 February 2011. It was opened by Professor Nick Pearce (Director of the Institute for Art History and Professor of Chinese Art in the University of Glasgow): his book Photographs of Peking, China 1861-1908 (2005) brilliantly identified in Durham University a collection of early photographs of China by both John Thomson and his associate Dr John Dudgeon, physician to the British Legation in Beijing.

At the opening Professor Pearce (right) emphasized the pioneering nature of John Thomson's endeavours, as Thomson travelled not just to Beijing and the Treaty Ports but also off the beaten track and into the landlocked provinces. Chinese music was provided at the opening by Eddie McGuire (flautist, composer, and a member of the first Scottish music group to tour the People's Republic of China in 1991) and Hooi Ling Eng, both members of the Sino-Scottish group Harmony Ensemble.

Although the photographer John Thomson (1837-1921) was a Scot, this is the first exhibition in Scotland to be devoted to his photographs of China. The exhibition contains prints from a selection of his glass negatives which were acquired by Henry S. Wellcome in 1921 and are preserved in the Wellcome Library. It shows the range of Thomson's work: the physical environment of China (rivers, mountains, agricultural land, palaces and hovels); the life of the poor, whether as street vendors in the cities or rice and tea workers in the countryside; Han and Manchu, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian; the Imperial family, grandees, mandarins and merchants; and intricate portrayals of family relationships. The exhibition was installed in the Burrell Collection's exhibition gallery and curated by Dr Yupin Chung, Curator of East Asian Art with Glasgow Museums (above left, with one of Thomson's photographs of an ancient tree-shrine in Taiwan).

Among the local residents attending was Dr Nigel Allan, former Curator of Oriental Collections at the Wellcome Library and former Hon. Secretary of the Friends of the Wellcome Library and Centre (right).

The exhibition continues until 12 June 2011. Admission is free, and there is a programme of talks by the curator and other activities. Haunting music in the gallery comes from a poetic video of Thomson's work by Thomas Jacobi, with an Imagistic commentary "Motes of living light" by the poet David Greygoose and flute accompaniment by Eddie McGuire.

Visitors can also see the amazing collections of the Glaswegian ship-owner Sir William Burrell (1861–1958) including (among other things) Chinese ceramics from the Tang, Song and Ming dynasties; paintings by Degas, Cézanne and others; and the great Warwick Vase. The collection is housed in a spacious and free-flowing modern building which has won several awards: it is sited in Glasgow's beautiful Pollok Park, where one might meet the friendly rangers patrolling on gigantic Clydesdale horses (left).

The exhibition has been shown with acclaim in four venues in China, starting in Beijing in April 2009, and subsequently in Liverpool and Hartlepool in the UK. Further showings of the exhibition are being arranged: see this website for the content of the exhibition, and please contact the Wellcome Library with suggestions of additional venues.

Imperial China comes to Hartlepool

Those of you with a good memory might recall previous postings here about the exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 opening first in Beijing last year, and then in Liverpool earlier this year. Well, its tour of the UK continues when it opens at the Hartlepool Art Gallery on 4th September. It will run until 13th November and will include over 100 reproductions of Thomson’s wonderful photographs of the people and landscapes of China in the 19th century.

The exhibition is a joint collaboration between the Wellcome Library (who own the original glass negatives from which the reproductions were made), and Betty Yao, an independent curator. Having been closely involved with the exhibition’s creation, I can attest to the beauty of the photographs and the high quality of the scholarly input that has gone into their accompanying labels. They offer a fascinating insight into life in China at the time, so if you’re in the area, pop by the museum to have a look!

Image: Camel sculptures on the road to the Ming tombs outside Peking. Photograph by John Thomson, 1871 (Wellcome Library no. 19258i)

Author: Rowan de Saulles

China then and now: exhibition in Liverpool

A Chinese portrait artist, Hong Kong. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869. Wellcome Library no. 19840i.

In or near Liverpool this weekend? Among other attractions in the city, the Wellcome Library's spectacular exhibition of photographs of Imperial China will be on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum for the last two days of the exhibition. On show are 150 photographs documenting the people, street life, customs, buildings and natural environment of 19th-century China.

The museum has created a video showing buildings and places as the photographer John Thomson saw them in China in 1870 and the same places as they are today. As readers of Stewart Brand's book How buildings learn (1994, subsequently a BBC film available on the web) will recognize, such a task takes a lot of effort but the results are often astonishing. One might wonder which is more surprising: the derelict state under the Late Qing Empire of some historic buildings now conserved, or the fact that some of the buildings and landscapes are virtually unchanged?



The exhibition China through the lens of John Thomson 1868-1872 is in the vaulted upper floors of Merseyside Maritime Museum, Albert Dock, Liverpool L3 4AQ, admission free, open 10 am to 5 pm, last day Sunday 6 June 2010.

Imperial China on Liverpool's waterfront

Dong Xun (1810-1892), Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs in the late Qing, prolific writer, and authority on hydrography. Photograph by John Thomson, 1872, in a digital scan from 2009. Wellcome Library no. 19558i

One of the treasures acquired by Henry S. Wellcome and now in the Wellcome Library is a collection of 688 glass negatives by the Victorian traveller John Thomson (1837-1921). They record Thomson's travels in China, Indo-China and Cyprus in the 1860s and 1870s, and are notable for several reasons: the portraits are insightful, the landscapes majestic, the subjects well-documented by Thomson himself, and the compositions were for the most part unpublished in the photographer's lifetime. Recent developments in digital scanning and storage have enabled the Wellcome Library to scan them at high resolution and to have the digital scans printed to a size and quality that in some cases allows us to see more in the photographs than the photographer himself could ever have seen through the lens of his wooden box camera. Click on the portrait of Dong Xun above and you should be able to see clearly the flowers painted on his fan.

About 150 selected photographs were exhibited as large framed prints in China in 2009, and received a warm reception in the four venues to which they toured: Beijing (Beijing World Art Museum), Fuzhou (Fujian Museum), Guangzhou (Guangzhou Museum), and Dongguan (Dongguan Exhibition Centre). The exhibition was visited in China by no fewer than 153,491 visitors, including over 9,000 schoolchildren. English-language comments in the visitors books include:

"Many congratulations on a wonderful exhibition of huge historical, educational and cultural value"--H.E. Sir William Ehrman, British Ambassador in Beijing
"Photos are excellent, and no other words to say - only awesome and so stunning. What an interesting collection"--visitor from Indonesia
"A remarkable and brilliant exhibition. Superb images by Thomson, fine reproductions and excellent content."--visitor from Hong Kong
"A lot of beautiful memories! Bring us back to history, every moment is a wonderful moment! Great show"--visitor from Hong Kong
"One of the best displayed photographic exhibition I have seen. Congratulations to everyone involved."--visitor from Northern Ireland
"Inspiring and meaningful exhibition, actually unbelievable - beautifully presented."--visitor from Beijing

Now Europeans have a chance to see the exhibition, as it has opened in its first venue outside China, at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool. The exhibition opened on 4 February 2010, in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside (Dame Lorna Muirhead, past President of the Royal College of Midwives), the Consul-General of the People's Republic of China in Manchester (Mr Jian Ni), and a crowd of interested Liverpudlians and visitors. The organizer of the exhibition Betty Yao, speaking in Chinese and English, explained the series of chances and coincidences which led to the survival of the negatives and ultimately the present exhibition, which was then viewed by an enthusiastic audience.

Left: Betty Yao at the opening of the exhibition in Liverpool. On the far left is Dr David Fleming, Director of the National Museums of Liverpool.

Remarkably, this is the first exhibition in England devoted to John Thomson's photographs of China. In Liverpool it is complemented by the museum's own Chinese and European paintings of sea-travel in the nineteenth century.

A contemporary photographer in Liverpool, Pete Carr, was quick off the mark in providing his comment on some striking aspects of the exhibition: see this blog posting.




Left to right: Les Stewart, Education Correspondent of radiocity 96.7; Fenfen Huang, actress, dancer and dance teacher; and Brian Wong D.L., J.P., Hon. Adviser to Liverpool Chinatown Business Association and a Trustee Board member of National Museums Liverpool.
Fenfen Huang is preparing a dance performance for Chinese New Year featuring Chinese Imperial motifs such as those found in the Thomson photographs.

Anyone who has not visited Liverpool at all, or not for some time, will find much of interest. The Merseyside Maritime Museum is housed in a vast renovated Victorian warehouse on the old dockside: the original vaulted brickwork ceilings have been retained in the galleries. Adjacent are Tate Liverpool and the new building of the Museum of Liverpool (already spectacular while still under construction). The city has benefited from Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture in 2008, which enabled the waterfront to be linked to the city centre by new public transport. Like Shanghai, with which Liverpool is twinned, Liverpool has a wealth of fine buildings in Classical, Gothic and Modern styles. There are stylish new restaurants and hotels, a monumental stone stairway is being built at the entrance to Lime Street Station, and inside the station there is a new bronze sculpture of a "Chance Encounter" between two of Liverpool's most famous citizens. In short there is a buzz about the city. The John Thomson exhibition will be on show at the Merseyside Maritime Museum until 6 June 2010.

"Chance Encounter": Ken Dodd meets Bessie Braddock MP on the Lime Street Station forecourt. Bronze by Tom Murphy, 2009.

Photographs by Rowan de Saulles and William Schupbach

A short post about long service

This summer marked the 35th anniversary of William Schupbach, Curator, Paintings, Prints and Drawings, starting work with what was then the Wellcome Institute. Since then, William and colleagues have undertaken a mammoth cataloguing task, to allow access to the illustrative works in our holdings. William has also spoken widely,
published extensively on medical portraiture, and was integral to the launch and success this year of the John Thomson exhibition in China.

Today also marks the 30th anniversary of Dr Lesley Hall starting work with the Wellcome. Since 1979, Lesley has been at the forefront of the Library’s work in acquiring and cataloguing the papers of twentieth century scientific societies and scientists of distinction. She is also one of the world’s leading historians of sexuality, with books including Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain (2000) and Outspoken Women (2005), and is a regular contributor to history programmes on both BBC radio and television.

Libraries are about people as much as they are about collections, and at the Wellcome Library, both our readers and fellow members of staff, have been extremely lucky to draw on William and Lesley’s knowledge and expertise.

April in Beijing

On the boulevards of Beijing the trees are in blossom as the Wellcome Library's exhibition is about to open at the World Art Museum.

The exhibition is Beijing's first opportunity to see the vivid photographs of late Qing dynasty China taken between 1869 and 1872 by the Scottish traveller John Thomson (1837-1921). It has taken four years of sterling work by the curator, Betty Yao.


The exhibition posters in the streets remind us that we have only one day left to finish off the work. For each of the 150 wall labels there are two versions, one in English and one in Chinese, which doubles the work of installing them. Fortunately our Chinese colleagues are generous with their time, work as a team, and appear to be indefatigable.

The last minute tasks are finished and the opening ceremony at the Beijing World Art Museum is introduced by Betty Yao, the moving spirit behind the exhibition. She is followed at the microphone by Mme Zhao Shaohua, Vice-Minister of Culture, People's Republic of China, and H.E. the British Ambassador, Sir William Ehrman: both of them speak knowledgeably about John Thomson and the present-day significance to China of his records of Chinese people and their conditions of life in the past. Our ambassador, speaking in Mandarin Chinese and English, pays tribute to Thomson's Scottish resilience. They are invited to cut the opening ribbon, together with Mr Feng, Deputy Director of the Museum, and William Schupbach from the Wellcome Library.

Below, left to right: Betty Yao MBE, Sir William Ehrman, Mme Zhao Shaohua, Mr Feng, William Schupbach.




Lunch follows in the enormous circular hall, beautifully prepared by Mr Ashraf Jahin of the Duge Courtyard Hotel.

The hall is supported by golden columns and lined with stone reliefs of scenes from Chinese history.

In the afternoon, there are interviews with the television, radio and print media, followed by two public lectures in the cavernous auditorium. The first is by Tong Binxue (far right, with the translator), a leading historian and collector of Chinese photography. He places Thomson in the context of other photographers in China, especially the Frenchman Jules Itier (1802-1877) and the Swiss Pierre-Joseph Rossier (1829-1883?), both of whom preceded Thomson to Beijing. However, as Tong points out, Thomson surpassed the others in his range of subjects, places and genres.

Then William Schupbach outlines Thomson's biography and explains how, against all the odds, Thomson's original negatives have survived thanks to the foresight of Henry S. Wellcome, and are sitting today on the shelves of the Wellcome Library in London, available to the interested public.

There are plenty of questions afterwards. One of them comes from a teacher involved in the educational programme: students in a school specializing in photography took photographs in 2009 of the very same places that Thomson photographed in 1872. The modern photographs, taken in colour, are on display, each with a small black and white reproduction of the 1872 photograph. The educational programme is being expanded to cover all school districts in Beijing. Lucky schoolchildren!

The gallery is thronged with visitors.

The photographs are a revelation. Their power is heightened by the simple and elegant design, the work of Jehanne de Biolley and Harrison Liu. The photographs are shown in white frames and are printed in different sizes to give the sequence a shape and a rhythm. There are three different colours for the wall fabrics: wisteria for Beijing and the north, celadon-green for Shanghai and the Treaty ports on the east coast, and sea-green-blue for the south (Canton, Hong Kong and Macao). Within each section there are groupings of like subjects: the land and the river, the people, and the built environment.

In the evening sunshine the portrait of the photographer, John Thomson, looks out from the Beijing Millennium Monument over the city which has been transformed since he visited it in 1872.

The following day China Central Television carries on its English-language programme Cultural Express an extensive report on the exhibition, and China Radio International carries an interview with Betty Yao. Among the print media, English-language papers which feature the exhibition include the Daily Telegraph, the Independent and Beijing Time Out , as do many Chinese newspapers and the April 2009 issue of Chinese photography. The web and the blogosphere also do their bit (for example the BBC website and the blog China Rhyming). With all this enthusiasm from our friends in the media, it is not surprising that the exhibition continues to attract visitors through the following days. China through the lens of John Thomson 1868-1872 is at the World Art Museum, Beijing, until 18 May 2009, and will then move south to Fujian Museum, Fuzhou City (13 June-16 August 2009), Guangzhou Museum (25 August-25 September 2009), and Dongguan Exhibition Center, Dongguan City (3 November-6 December 2009). Further showings in other countries are being arranged. Illustrated catalogue in Chinese and English: ISBN 9787802363328

Photographs by Rowan de Saulles and William Schupbach. Thanks to Betty Yao and all who helped to make the exhibition a reality.

John Thomson photographs to be displayed in Beijing

A selection of digitised negatives by John Thomson will be displayed at the Beijing World Art Museum in 2009. BBC China highlighted this exhibition recently, including audio commentary and image galleries.

The Wellcome Library has recently completed digitising the 650 glass negatives. They were taken by Thomson during his travels in the Far East in the 1860s and 70s. Thomson captured these rare scenes using the collodion process, a very early photographic technique. This collection was purchased by Henry Wellcome in 1921, and the Library also holds a number of prints which can be viewed on request.

The negatives have undergone extensive conservation treatment. During 2008, they were scanned using a high-end flatbed scanner in order to capture the depth of detail present on the negatives, and to enable large-format printing. A technical report on the digitisation project is publically available.