Power and Perspective: Early Photography in China

A beautifully produced catalogue of an important exhibition organized by the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) Salem, MA, by Corrigan (associate director of collections and H.A. Crosby Forbes Curator of Asian Export Art) and Tung (Byrne Family Curator of Photography). It draws from PEM’s collection of more than 2,500 photographs taken in 19th-century China and is further enriched by the museum’s extensive holdings of 18th- and 19th-century Chinese export art (ceramics, furniture, textiles) made primarily for Western consumers. The goal of the project is to “reveal and frame” the making and reception of photography, to see these images as “charged narratives,” reflecting the biases and desires of the photographers and consumers who made and viewed the images. Well-researched chapters provide context for understanding the politics and history of 19th-century China; the political, cultural, social, and commercial uses of photography during this tumultuous period in China; and the origins of PEM’s Chinese photography collection via merchants from Massachusetts who lived and worked in China’s treaty ports. With 300 black-and-white and color photographs and illustrations, a bibliography, and index.