THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHINA IN MACAU

Until just a few months ago when the exhibition "The First Photographs of Macau and Canton" opened in Macau, it was thought that the oldest existing photographs of China dated from after 1860 and had been taken by the Venetian photographer Felice Beato. Although it was still possible that there may have been photographs taken at an earlier stage by a Chinese, the fact remained that Beato's was regarded at international level as the first photoreport of China of any major significance.

The neighbouring colony of Hong Kong provided no evidence of any photographs dating from before 1860 even though the oldest photographs of both the colony and material produced by Westerners who visited China are in fact held there.

In 1978, the Philadelphia Museum of Art prepared an exhibition of early photographs of China dating from 1860 to 1912. This was the most extensive exhibition ever to be held in the field and it visited several cities throughout North America. The catalogue, published under the title The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers -1860-1912, contained copies of the photographs, explanatory notes and specialised articles written by experts. Fred Drake, editor of the catalogue took advantage of materials from a wide range of sources and archives of which the most significant, include Harvard University; Bibliothéque Nationale; British Museum; Library of Congress; National Archives; New York Public Library; Smithsonian Institution; and the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as several private collections.

Felice Beato can therefore be regarded not only as the first foreign reporter to work in China but also the first photographer to take pictures of China of which we still have concrete evidence.

Beato, however, is not the only name to be connected to the field of photography in China in the last century. Also of great importance were John Thompson, Ernest Wilson and John Hinton.

John Henry Hinton was born in London in 1875. By the age of nineteen he was already on his way to China to work in Shanghai as a piano-tuner for Samuel Montrie & Cº. Once in China, he travelled extensively for the first two years and studied Chinese language and culture. His first album of photographs included fourteen pictures of China, mainly of Shanghai. When the allied troops reached Tientsin in 1899, Hinton followed them to Peking, taking photographs of the military operations and landscapes along the way. He was to include these photographs in an album dated the 2nd of November, 1901.

Ernest Henry Wilson, nick-named "Chinese" Wilson, visited China on several occa sions while on research and botanical expeditions. He made his first trip in 1899 and using material which was, by that point, completely obsolete, he took over five thousand photographs on glass plates, keeping the nitratebased negatives for his personal collection.

The first photographic work produced in China to have a major impact in the West was that of John Thompson. Born in Edinburgh, Thompson had already travelled through Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia before reaching Hong Kong in 1868. From there, he travelled a thousand miles into the Chinese mainland providing himself with the material for a four-volume book entitled Illustrations of China and Its People which contained two hundred photographs and accompanying notes. His first photographs thus date from 1868 and include some pictures of Macau. (N. C.)

The history of photo-reporting predates Thompson's expedition by some years. It began with photo-engravings of the Crimean War which were printed in the Illustrated London News. Roger Fenton was the first photo-reporter to cover a war. He was sent to the Crimea by the London newspaper with instructions not to take pictures of anything too disturbing. He transformed a delivery van into a working caravan with bed, kitchen and study. With him he took five cameras, seven hundred glass plates, tools, chemicals to print the slides, emulsion and thirty-six boxes. In spite of the dreadful weather and logistical problems he encoun tered, Fenton managed to take three hundred and sixty photographs. He limited himself to working for only a brief period each day because the high temperatures dried out the plates too quickly, preventing him from using the wet collodion process.

Fenton was forced to return to England suffering from an attack of cholera and James Robertson, Head Engraver of the Imperial Mint in Constantinople was sent to the Crimean Peninsula in his place, with Felice Beato as his assistant. Robertson and Beato worked together on several images of war and later on a series of photographs of Constantinople, Athens, Cairo and places in Palestine which had links with the story of the Bible. They set off for India as soon as they received news of uprisings there and while Robertson remained, Beato travelled on to the Far East, attracted by reverberations of the second Opium War.

Beato had already primed his lens in the Crimea by focussing it on the more brutal scenes of war during the looting of Balaclava. In China he was once again attracted to join the armies which left in 1860 to capture Tientsin and which were eventually to loot the Imperial Summer Palace in Peking.

While Robertson used the albumen-on-glass process invented by C. Niépce de St. Victor, in which light sensitive salts are held in suspension in albumen while forming a coating on a glass sheet, Beato in China was using a newer development in photographic processes -the collodion plate, invented in 1848 by F. Scott Acher. In this process the silver salts sensitive to light are held in a finely separated suspension in a solution of soluble halides containing gelatin.

Several factors involved in the taking of a photograph in these early days make it astonishing that the attempt was ever undertaken, except in the most ideal circumstances. First, the cameras had to be large in order to containglass plates of 10 x 12 inches, or 12 x 16, or even larger. The weight of the glass plates, which had to be carried, securely packed in wooden boxes, was a formidable obstacle in itself. Generally, the camera had several heavy interchangeable lenses. The tripod resembled a primitive version of that stout and burdensome tripod used today for such instruments as the surveyor's theodolite. In addition, some form of portable darkroom had to be taken along, to include a lightproof tent, all the chemicals for coating the plates with emulsion and airtight glass jars for developing and fixing. It is not surprising to hear of photographers hiring a small army of local porters to trek over the country so that they could set up their clumsy laboratories in the field and with an intense exertion that can only be imagined, take their photographs.

In those days the sensitive wet coating on the glass plate was slow to react to light, and exposures were commensurately long. Prints had to be made directly from the resulting negatives.

The photographer of the nineteenth century - right up to 1899, when Eastman introduced the first celluloid film coated with silver bromide emulsion - had to be a person of considerable stamina and extensive training in chemistry and its practical applications, making his own emulsion, developing and printing with what were, by any standard, somewhat primitive materials. Each picture was the hard-won result of an endurance test in which numerous things could go wrong: a puff of wind as the plate was being loaded could spray it with all manner of particles (dust, straw, leaves, sand, depending on the location); a stumbling donkey on a foreign trail could wreck a couple of boxes of plates or already prepared negatives.

("Pioneer Photographers" in The Face of China as seen by Photographers and Travelers, Aperture Inc). When we pause to consider the complex, time-consuming task of writing as compared to the sudden reality of photography, we realise the impact which these adventurous pioneers in photography had on the West.

The records of their journeys through China in the last century conveyed images which, up until that point, could only be created in the imagination using the written descriptions in travelogues as a basis.

It is interesting that only a few years ago, it was discovered that there was a collection of photographs of Macau and Canton which had been taken a good sixteen years prior to the arrival of Beato. The photographs were being kept in the French Museum of Photography and had been taken by Jules Itier in 1844, a mere five years after Daguerre had presented the world with the startling results of his research: the "invention of photography".

Jules Itier, a customs official and amateur photographer, had come to Macau as a member of the French delegation sent to negotiate a peace treaty with China in October 1844. Armed with a large wooden box and a myriad of accessories, Itier launched himself into the streets of Macau with the intention of recording the exotic scenes for the first time in this medium. In his diary, he wrote " I spent these last two days [14th and 15th of October] capturing the most interesting features of Macau on daguerreotype". Just a few days later, Itier was in Canton taking photographs. There, he was overwhelmed by requests from local dignitaries and their families to have their photographs taken.

It was not the practice of European amateurs to engage in open-air photography during the early years of its existence. It was limited to the studios and laboratories of those few specialists and artists who had been initiated into its mysterious secrets. Most likely, even though news of the advent of photography may have reached China before Itier, its practical applications would have remained unknown on the Chinese continent.

So, while Itier was not exactly a photo-reporter but rather an amateur who was streets ahead of his time, he did in fact prove to be the first person to produce a photographic record of Macau and Canton, and earned himself a place in history as the first photographer to work in China.

An interesting predecessor to this discovery occurred in 1979 when the Bulletin of the Canton Photographers Association (Kuantong Suo Yang Tou Xun) published an article on Cao Pak Kei (1819-1869), a Chinese chemist. The article claimed that he was "a pioneer of photography in China at a time when this science had still not been discovered abroad".

By way of an interesting sideline to this theory we should remember that China had long been exposed to the arrival of cultural, scientific and technological discoveries from the West, particularly during the sixteenth century. The majority of these new ideas were introduced by the Jesuits and the Macanese. According to Chinese accounts, one of the objects which most fascinated the Chinese were spectacles and the function of the lens. There is even a curious little poem dating from the late Ming which alludes to them:

"Strange object from the West

Bringing the eyes into focus

While shading them

They cast more light inside."

To return to Cao Pak Kei, however, we know that he was born in a village near Canton in 1819. By the time he was sixteen the young scientist had already written his first book in which he included a chapter on the theory and practice of using a camera obscura and the art of photography. According to his book, Cao Pak Kei must have based his ideas on several references to this art in Chinese literature over the centuries, for instance, the scientist Mo Tse's treaty Muojing, written around two thousand years previously in which he described various machines and weapons. Mo Tse had already mentioned the phenomenon of inverted images projected through a hole and had realised that there was a relation between the distance of the object and the resulting size of image.

In the Song dynasty the Mong Si Pi Tang encyclopaedia discussed the same phenomenon but with reference to the reflection of images through a lens. According to the Kuantong Suo Yang Tou Xun, Cao Pak Kei had, by 1835, "invented the principle of photography before the German 'Lui Dakar' discovered photography in 1839," and, "according to a record from 1844, Cao Pak Kei had by this date made the first camera to be used in China. The first camera to arrive from abroad came to Canton in 1846 which proves that Cao Pak Kei's invention predated the foreign camera."

Apparently, researchers had come across three photographs on glass plates while working in the home of the scientist's great grandson. One of the photographs concerned was actually a self-portrait. The researchers were not able to discover which substances he had used to expose and reveal the photographs. Nor were they able to date these early photographs accurately but they did confirm that they had been fixed with mercury.

In response to this claim, I think it is worth pointing out a few details which could clarify the present situation. Of minor importance is the fact that Louis-Jacques Daguerre was not German. Similarly, it is incorrect to claim that the first camera arrived in Canton in 1846 as we now know that Jules Itier brought a camera with him when he arrived in Macau in October, 1844.

The Shroff, John Thompson (1868). Checks on the value of coins were carried out by the treasurers and trusted staff of companies. The Chinese were famous and highly respected by European traders for their skill in being able to distinguish a false from a true coin. Taken from Illustrations of China and Its People, Sampson Low, Marston Low and Searle, London, 1873.

We must, however, appreciate that there is a difference between the construction of the camera itself and the discovery of photography. Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to look at the contribution made by advances in physics and chemistry. Firstly, the principle of the camera obscura had long been understood and researched in the West. Empirical observations of this phenomenon date from at least prior to Aristotle (384-322 BC) who was the first to describe the projection of an inverted image in a dark room by letting in some light through a hole the size of a pencil. Most probably, Plato had already observed this phenomenon while, at a much later date, Leonardo da Vinci was to describe the principle in his manuscripts.

We know that the camera obscura was used by Italian painters in the Renaissance as an aid to tracing shapes on canvas and providing perspective. The two great Venetian painters, Canaletto and Francesco Guardi used this technique in their own scenes of the city.

Various improvements were made to the camera obscura before the camera was invented. These included the introduction of a variable aperture, a mirror set at an angle of 45^ō to invert the image back into the correct position, and lenses to vary the width of the field. Johann Zahn, a monk, replaced paper with opaque glass and used two lenses, one concave, one convex, focussing on different fields to obtain larger pictures.

Ningpo hairdresser and wigmaker with her hairtied back in the traditional manner, John Thompson (1868). Taken from Illustrations of China and Its People, Sampson Low, Marston Low and Searle, London, 1873.

In 1727, the German anatomist Johann Schulze noticed that some phosphorous he was preparing turned purple when it was left near the window. He had made a precipitation of lime in nitric acid and obtained silver from the acid by a process of elimination. He was able to deduce that the silver salts were darkened by the action of light. Following through this research, Jean Hellot used silver nitrate on paper in 1737 while four decades later the Swiss chemist Carl Scheele experimented with silver chloride making the discovery that it was extremely sensitive to violet light and that it could be fixed with ammonia thus leading to the early stages of a fixer.

The first experiments in fixing images through light were carried out by Thomas Wedgwood and described by Humphry Davy in 1802. Wedgwood, the son of Josiah the renowned English potter, was acquainted with the principle of the camera obscura for transferring decorations and pictures onto china-ware.

Even though he used silver nitrate on paper and bleached leather to fix silhouettes of leaves and insects' wings, he was still unable to achieve his objective. Although both he and Sir Davy were able to get an image, it always ended up over-exposed and was therefore lost as they could not find a way of neutralising the solution.

The first person to obtain a photographic negative on paper was the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. He had started off by exploring the possibilities offered by bitumen of Judea which had been used in lithographs on glass plates up to that point. The advantage offered by the bitumen was that it turned white and hardened on exposure to the sun while the protected areas remained soluble and could later be dissolved with lavender oil and turpentine.

In 1826, Niépce exposed a pewter plate prepared with bitumen of Judea in a camera with a lens placed so as to correct the image. He focussed the camera on a view from his window in Gras and after exposing the plate for eight hours, succeeded in taking the first photograph in the world. In his attempts to improve on his technique, Niépce developed the heliograph.

Louis Daguerre worked with Niépce from 1829 to try to perfect the heliograph. He was also trying to obtain an efficient fixing agent which would last. After several years of research, he left a plate exposed next to his cupboard of chemicals one day, only to find, some days later, that a picture had developed. Daguerre discovered that the new effect had been produced by mercury vapours which had come from a broken thermometer.

This was how the photographic process came into being in the form known as the daguerreotype. The photo-sensitive substance was silver iodide, obtained from a silver plate exposed to iodine vapours which was later developed with mercury vapours and fixed with sodium thiosulfate. ( J. Hedgecoe, op. cit. ).

Given that Cao Pak Kei was unaware of the chemical processes involved in the invention of photography, it is highly unlikely that he should have been able, in such a short period of time and in his isolated position, to reach the same conclusions and discover the significance of mercury which Daguerre had merely stumbled across.

It is one thing to perfect the mechanism of the camera and build a machine which can record images. It is quite a different matter to understand the chemical processes by which these pictures can be developed and fixed.

Without in any way wishing to belittle the achievements of the Cantonese scientist, the facts remain the same. There is news of a camera having been invented near Canton in 1844. In the same year there is documentary proof that Jules Itier actually took photographs in Macau and Canton.

The fact that photography was an unknown art in China is revealed in John Thompson's accounts of the people's reactions to his activities in 1868. At times, the photographer was forced to flee from the scene he was photographing, pursued by superstitious locals hurling at him whatever was nearest to hand.

While it is true that the more backward areas tended to display greater distrust of new inventions, Jules Itier tells another story in his diaries concerning the reaction of the members of the bureaucratic elite in Canton. There his invention was viewed with astonishment and the kind of sensationalism accorded to unheardof innovations. This would never have happened had the Cantonese mandarins been familiar with the techniques and had been photographed prior to Itier's arrival. They would merely have dismissed him with a "Déjàvu, monsieur...".

Therefore, until further proof can be produced to counter our claim, the first photographs to be produced of China and in China were those taken by Jules Itier in Macau, the stepping stone to the Middle Kingdom.

Wealthy Chinese family. Taken from New China and Old by Archdeacon Moule, Seeley and Co. Limited, London, 1891.

Street in Peking, taken by unidentified photographer (1860). Taken from The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers -1860-1912, L. Carrington-Goodrich and Nigel Cameron, ed. Aperture Inc., 1978.

In the grounds of a mandarin's home. Taken from New China and Old by Archdeacon Moule, Seeley and Co. Limited, London, 1891.

The Ruins of Yuan-ming, the former Summer Palace in north-eastern Peking, Thomas Childe (1875). The European-style buildings were designed in the early XVIIIth century by the Jesuit priest Giuseppe Castiglione. In 1860, on orders from Lord Elgin, British and French troops burnt the palace down in revenge for the ill-treatment meted out to prisoners of war. Taken from The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers -1860-1912, L. Carrington-Goodrich and Nigel Cameron, ed. Aperture Inc., 1978.

Fathers and legates at prayer at the burial of a Christian in Macau, M. A. Baptista (c. 1860). Taken from The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers - 1860-1912, L. Carrington-Goodrich and Nigel Cameron, ed. Aperture Inc., 1978.

This photograph is of special interest as the signature on it may well be that of Marciano António Baptista (1826-1896), the Macanese artist.

The tombstone and figures are typical of Macau in the last century. The date given would place Baptista and Felix Beato as pioneers in the field of photography in China.

However, Marciano Baptista moved to Hong Kong with his family in the 1840s and only returned to Macau once more in 1875 as he indicates in a caption on his drawing of Guia Lighthouse. It is interesting to note, nevertheless, that Baptista was familiar with the art of photography and used his photographs of China as a basis for his paintings.

Temple in Ningpo, taken by an unidentified photographer (1865). Ningpo was one of the five ports open to the West after the Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842. Taken from The Faceof China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers -1860-1912, L. Carrington-Goodrich and Nigel Cameron, ed. Aperture Inc., 1978.

Boat pulled by buffalo. Taken from New China and Old by Archdeacon Moule, Seeley and Co. Limited, London, 1891.

Peasants in the late nineteenth-century holding umbrellas and wearing traditional clothing. Taken from New China and Oldby Archdeacon Moule, Seeley and Co. Limited, London, 1891.

Ha-de-mun Street as viewed from Ha-de Gate to the west of the Southern Wall in the Tartar city in Peking, taken by an unidentified photographer (1865). This street led from the Chinese city to the Tartar city where the palaces of the principal Manchu princes were located along with most of the government buildings. Taken from The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers -1860-1912, ed. Aperture Inc., 1978.

Street tradesmen in Kiukiang, John Thompson (1868). From left to right: soup-vendor, public scribe telling the fortune of a female client, barber and wood-turner with his customer. Taken from Illustrations of China and Its People, Sampson Low, Marston Low and Searle, London, 1873.

Group of men and children at the Bridge of Eternal Prosperity during Catholic prayers. Taken from New China and Old by Archdeacon Moule, Seeley and Co. Limited, London, 1891.

View of a Confucian Temple taken from An-Ting Bridge, Felix Beato (1860). Taken from The Face of China as Seen by Photographers and Travelers - 1860-1912, L. Carrington-Goodrich and Nigel Cameron, ed. Aperture Inc., 1978.

Manchu lady with a married woman's hair-style, distinguishable from other Chinese female hairstyles. Taken from Illustrations of China and Its People, Sampson Low, Marston Low and Searle, London, 1873.

Donkeys in northern China. Taken from New China and Old by Archdeacon Moule, Seeley and Co. Limited, London, 1891.