Thomas Child

Thomas Child, "Great Wall with Gate, Badaling", 1870s, albumen silver print. Source: Stephan Loewentheil Photography of China Collection Thomas Child (1841–1898) was an English photographer and engineer best known for his pioneering photography work in China. Child produced a large body of photographs during his time in Beijing in the 1870s and 1880s, a time when virtually no other photographers operated in the city. During the two decades he spent in China, Child compiled the earliest comprehensive photographic catalogue of the customs, architecture, and people of late Qing dynasty Beijing. A keen photographer of architecture, some of Child's images are among the earliest and the only known photographic records of their architectural subjects.

Life and work Thomas Child, "Jade Belt Bridge," 1870s, albumen silver print. Source: Stephan Loewentheil Photography of China Collection Thomas Child was born in Shropshire, England, in 1841 to John and Elizabeth Child. In 1870, Child was hired by Sir Robert Hart to join the Chinese Maritime Customs Service as a gas engineer, and left England for Beijing with his photographic equipment in June of that year. Child lived in Beijing until 1889. When he arrived in Beijing, the city was still largely devoid of foreigners, and only a few photographers had ever produced images in and of the Chinese city.

Thomas Child, "Peking Street Shops", 1870s, albumen silver print. Source: Stephan Loewentheil Photography of China Collection By March 1871, Child had started to photograph the architecture of Beijing.

Thomas Child, "Princes Porch, Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan), Beijing," 1870s, albumen silver print. Source: Stephan Loewentheil Photography of China Collection One of Child's most significant contributions to both 19th-century photography and the study of Chinese architecture and history are his photographs of Yuanmingyuan – known in English as the Old Summer Palace – one of the most potent symbols of China's past. Child's images are among the earliest and most important photographic evidence of particular features at the significant historical site. Additional sites that Child photographed such as the Xiyang Lou and the Fountain Gate would be further destroyed in the Boxer War and subsequent conflicts.

Surviving photographs and desiderata The Stephan Loewentheil Photography of China Collection contains the most significant archive of Child's life work, including the largest group of his photographs of Beijing, Child's personal diaries, and the only known set of his original glass plate negatives. Child's diaries "provide fascinating insight" into his journey to China, and describe "local inhabitants, cultural and religious practices, buildings and architecture but also ... detailed descriptions of photographs."

Child's original albumen print photographs are scarce, and rarely come up for sale. A group of 31 of Child's original albumen prints, from the collection of scholar Colin Osman, were auctioned at Sotheby's in 2006, one of the first notable contemporary auction results for Child. Child's albumen prints have also been discovered in albums alongside the work of other Chinese and international photographers of the region such as Lai Afong, Felice Beato and William Saunders. Child's photographs are held in the permanent collections of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY; the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY; the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.; and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA. The exhibition was praised by news outlets such as The New York Times,

Unlike other foreign photographers who passed through Beijing – including Felice Beato and John Thomson Child's photographs were appreciated by both international and Chinese clientele during his lifetime, and his images were circulated around the world. Curator Stacey Lambrow has stated that "Thomas Child is under-recognized. What he did was remarkable, creating ... the most comprehensive photographic portrayal of 19th-century Peking."

Chinese language sources 洛文希尔中国摄影收藏 清华大学艺术博物馆、洛文希尔收藏编.世相与映像——洛文希尔摄影收藏中的19世纪中国.北京：清华大学出版社，2018. [英]泰瑞·贝内特.中国摄影史：西方摄影师1861–1879.徐婷婷译.北京：中国摄影出版社，2013.