5 results
Illustrations of China and Its People: A Series of Two Hundred Photographs, with Letterpress Descriptive of the Places and People Represented
John Thomson (1837-1921) was the first known photographer to document the people and landscape of China for publication and dissemination to the Western world. Between 1868 and 1872, he traveled over 6,500 kilometers with his camera, equipment, and darkroom, capturing all aspects of Chinese life. The photographs in these four volumes show the many sides of China: sweeping landscapes, royalty and ruling classes, merchants and economic activity, everyday life, and the faces of men, women, and children. Thomson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a tobacco spinner ...
Contributed by
Yale University Library
Customs of the Tribes in Taiwan
This album of twelve paintings is a record of the land and people of the island of Taiwan more than a hundred years ago. The surfaces of the paintings are somewhat rough and unfinished, but they show people farming, hunting, and going about their everyday lives and are thus an important resource for the study of the history of Taiwan. The album contains a preface in English by Arthur William Hummel (1884-1975), an American missionary to China and Sinologist who from 1928 to 1954 was the first head of the ...
Contributed by
Library of Congress
Depictions of Metals, Minerals, Insects and Plants
Jin shi kun chong cao mu zhuang (Depictions of metals, minerals, insects, and plants) was painted by Wen Shu (1594–1634), a great-great-granddaughter of Wen Zhengming (1470–1559), one of the greatest Ming dynasty painters, calligraphers, and scholars. Married to Zhang Jun, also a painter, and residing in Hanshan, Wen Shu was surrounded by nature and excelled in painting birds, flowers, plants, insects, and butterflies. She spent a number of years copying thousands of illustrations from books of traditional Chinese medicine in the imperial collection. Zhang Jun’s handwritten preface ...
Contributed by
National Central Library
Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico
This 16th-century pictographic manuscript, written in Mexico, contains the declarations of the defendants and witnesses in an investigation into charges of misrule and abuse against Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco and other Spanish authorities in New Spain, as Mexico was then called. The investigation was carried out in 1563–66 by Don Jeronimo de Valderrama, who was sent to Mexico for this purpose by order of Philip II of Spain. The people and their statements are represented through pictographs, followed by an explanation in Nahuatl and Castilian Spanish for the ...
Contributed by
National Library of Spain
Album of the Old City
Al’bom starogo L’vova (Album of the old city), published in 1917, is a collection of images of the main historical monuments of L’viv (in present-day western Ukraine). The album contains pictures of the dominant places of worship, such as the Catholic Cathedral, the Armenian Cathedral, the Dominican Church, and the Benedictine Church. Illustrations show both details and scenes of L’viv’s streets, built in the 16th–19th centuries. The architectural details include bas-reliefs, carved doorways, fine and amusing stone carving, and moldings. People are seen walking ...
Contributed by
National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine