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Prat (G.) Photograph Album of China and Japan
98.R.14
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: G. Prat photograph album of China and Japan
Creator:
Prat, G., active 1874-1900
Identifier/Call Number: 98.R.14
Identifier/Call Number: /repositories/3/resources/1151
Physical Description:
1.5 Linear Feet
(1 album containing 151 photographs; 21 loose photographic prints)
Date (inclusive): 1874-1900
Abstract: The album, compiled by G. Prat, a French silk inspector working in China in the latter part of the
nineteenth century, contains 151 albumen photographs of China and Japan. The album's visual focus is on the ports and trading
centers of China's Pearl
River Delta. Present are 98 views of Guangzhou (Canton); six of Hong Kong; and 11 of Macau. Additionally, there are 16 images
on eight pages depicting
the Canton Amateur Theatrical Society's (CATS) productions, and 20 photographs of Japan, 19 of which are hand colored. Photographers
include Lai Fong
and Kusakabe Kinbē. Extensive commentary written on the mount borders forms Prat's compendium on China in which he addresses
any number of topics from
history, geography, climate, agriculture, religion, language and dialects, and business practices to family life, sedan chairs,
etiquette, costume and
dress, and opium, to a lexicon of colonial Asian terms. The album is accompanied by 21 loose albumen prints and a manuscript
listing photographs to be
acquired.
Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory
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Language of Material:
French .
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 1998.
The collection was digitized in 2000 and the images are available online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/98r14
The collection is arranged in a single series: Series I: G. Prat photograph album of China and Japan, 1874-1900.
The Frenchman, G. Prat, lived in Asia during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, working or traveling in the region
from at least 1874 to 1896.
From 1877 to 1884, he was based in Guangzhou where he was employed as a silk inspector by the American trading company Russell
& Co. for a year and
a half, and by the English firm Thomas, Rowe, & Smith for five and a half years. He was active in the European community on
Shamian Island and
numbered among his friends the "junior men" who were variously employed as accountants, tea tasters, silk inspectors, and
the like at the European
trading houses established in the port city.
Sources consulted:
___"The Case of the Canton-Riot,"
The Straits Times, 27 September 1883, p. 2. Newspaper SG, microfilm reel NL05047.
The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Sian, Netherlands India,
Borneo, the Philippines, &c: with which are Incorporated "The China Directory" and "The Hong Kong List for the Far East…"
Hong Kong:
Hongkong Daily Press Office, 1882.
Events in Hongkong and the Far East, 1875 to 1884. Hong Kong: Daily Press Office, 1885.
Bickers, Robert,
China Bound: John Swire & Sons and Its World, 1816 – 1980. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Department of State, United States,
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1885.
Hart, Robert and James Duncan Campbell,
The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs,
1868-1907
. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Morse, Hosea Ballou,
The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, volume 2: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893.
New York, Bombay, Calcutta: Longmans, Green and Co, 1918.
Perdue, Peter C., "The Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System," Visualizing Cultures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
website.
https://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/rise_fall_canton_01/pdf/cw03_essay.pdf
Prat, G., G. Prat Photograph Album of China and Japan, 1874-1900, accession number 98.R.14, album, Box 1*.
G. Prat photograph album of China and Japan, 1874-1900, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 98.R.14.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa98r14
The finding aid was written by Beth Ann Guynn in 2020. The collection was originally accessioned with the title: Chine-Japon
Photograph Album.
The collection comprises an album compiled by G. Prat containing 151 albumen photographs, some of which are hand colored;
21 loose albumen prints; and
a manuscript list of photographs to be obtained.
The untitled album is half bound in dark green leather with gilt stamped decorative banding; the spine is mostly lacking.
The boards are covered in
dark green leatherette. Inscribed on the free front endpaper is the compiler's name, simply recorded as "G. Prat." The album
has 149 pages with eight
blank pages in the middle and one blank page at its end. While most of the pages contain a single image, six pages hold two
photographs, and two pages
hold three photographs.
The album's visual focus is on the ports and trading centers of China's Pearl River Delta. Present are 98 views of Guangzhou
(Canton), one of the five
original Chinese treaty ports; six of Hong Kong; and 11 of Macau. Additionally, there are 16 images on eight pages depicting
the Canton Amateur
Theatrical Society's (CATS) productions, and 20 photographs of Japan, 19 of which are hand-colored. To date, a handful of
the photographs of China have
been identified as being by Lai Fong and it is likely that further research will confirm that the bulk of them are in fact
by this Chinese photographer
or his studio, known as Afong Studio, which was based in Hong Kong. It is also possible that some of the China photographs
could have been taken by Prat
himself, although this argument is weakened by the fact that Lai Fong (or his studio operatives) frequently documented the
events and outings of the
denizens of the Western settlements in the treaty ports. Lastly, Kusakabe Kinbē has been identified as the maker of most
of the photographs of Japan in
the album.
Captions are written in French above the photographs and are continued below the image. The upper portion of the caption usually
contains a location
and a date, while the one below the image is usually descriptive of the photograph and often has additional notes written
immediately below it. Most of
the titles of the individual photographs were derived by combining the two captions. Prat's spelling has been retained and
transcribed as written with
the exception of distinct words linked by ligatures which have been divided into separate words.The date in the caption above
each photograph has been
used to date the image it is associated with, although in some cases the descriptive text indicates that these dates may be
of a more general nature
rather than being strictly specific to the image.
Although the dates in the upper captions range from 1874 to 1896, the album is not organized in chronological order. Rather,
Prat seems to have started
compiling the album beginning with photographs taken in or related to 1878, and then adding groups of photographs from both
before and after that date
as his project progressed. The first six photographs in the album document the aftermath of the cyclone (which Prat refers
to as a
trombe) that struck Guangzhou on April 10, 1878. The emphasis on the destruction of buildings in the European settlement on
Shamian Island, specifically that sustained by the European trading houses, sets the tone for Prat's focus on documenting
the Western business
communities established along the Pearl River Delta.
The island known as Shamian (also Shameen; Shamin; Prat uses the French spelling Shamien) is where Prat spent a significant
amount of the time covered
in the album. In 1859, the foreign community in Guangzhou was moved from the banks of the Pearl River to the island, a former
sandbar that was separated
from the mainland by the creation of an artificial canal or river (now called Shajichong) and built up to encompass twenty-seven
hectares. Britain
leased three-fifths of the island from China, using it for their concession or settlement, while France leased the remaining
land. Leasing the land from
China allowed the settlements to exist autonomously, essentially exempt from local Chinese control. The island was connected
to the mainland by two
bridges, one located in each settlement, that were locked at night. By 1873, Shamian boasted ten foreign consulates, numerous
western banks, and the
local headquarters of the most prominent European and American trading companies present in China.
The remainder of the photographs in the first half of the album alternate between views on Shamian and views of the Chinese
city. Attention is given to
areas where the two communities were likely to meet, such as the docks and wharves, and to the assorted Chinese and European
vessels plying its
waterways. Informed by his profession as a silk inspector, Prat naturally focuses on the numerous British, French, German,
and American trading
companies established on Shamian. These companies were housed in so called "factories" which combined trade offices, warehouses,
and living quarters for
their male employees. Nothing was manufactured in these buildings, which had facades that gave them the appearance of large
villas. Rather, the term
factory comes from the English word factor, used to mean commercial agent. The Chinese term for these establishments was "hongs."
Across East Asia and
the East Pacific they were also referred to as "godowns." Prat calls them "maisons." In the album, Prat includes photographs
of or mentions all of the
important houses: W. Pustau & Co. Siemssen & Co.; Jardine, Matheson & Co.; Olyphant & Co.; Russell & Co.; Coare, Lind, & Co.;
Carlowitz & Co.; Birley & Co.; Deacon & Co.; Vogel Hagedorn (Vogel & Co.); and Thomas, Rowe, & Smith (Thomas & Mercer Co.).
The
earlier images often show the "junior men" of the company seated on porches and verandas or standing on upper balconies. Prat
identifies the men, noting
his close friends. Photographs placed later along in the album depict the state of the trading houses after the anti-foreign
riots that took place on
September 10, 1883.
While the overarching background to the anti-foreign riots on Shamian Island was the growing tension between France and China
due to the increasing
French encroachment in northern Vietnam (Tonkin) that culminated in the Sino-French war (April 1884 to April 1885), two local
incidents involving
Europeans that resulted in the death of Chinese persons were the immediate causes of the uprising. In the first, which occurred
on August 13, 1883, J.
H. Logan, an English tidewaiter or customs officer, confronted a group of Chinese men and boys who were gathered on the steps
of the house where he was
drinking and playing cards. An argument ensued when the partying men tried to send the Chinese men away. Logan ran back inside
the building, retrieved a
rifle, and fired it, wounding a Chinese man and woman and killing Pak Wa Kung, a twelve-year-old Chinese boy.
The second, known as the "Hankow incident," began when Luo Fen, who was attemping to secure good berths for boardinghouse
guests on the steamer
Hankow early in the morning of September 10, was accosted and brutally kicked by Faustino Caetano Diaz, a Portuguese watchman,
causing him to fall overboard. Luo's death was due either directly to the blows or to drowning. In response to Luo's death,
Chinese rioters set fire to
the wharf and sheds where the Hankow was moored, but the steamer itself escaped harm by sailing quickly upriver. Failing to
destroy the vessel, the
rioters moved on to Shamian Island where they looted and burned numerous buildings. Most of the European women and children
fled to other steamships
anchored in the harbor, while the male population patrolled the island. Charles Seymour, the American consul at Guangzhou,
began his understated
dispatch written at ten p.m. on the night of the riots to John Russell Young, the American minister to China (later the seventh
Librarian of Congress),
"Sir: I have the honor to inform you that the Europeans and Americans residing in Canton and on the Shameen have had an interesting
day during which
some lives were lost and considerable property has been destroyed, amounting in value to about $200,000…"
The Chinese army was called in to help protect the settlement from further rioting. Several photographs record its encampment
and groups of soldiers on
the commons with burnt buildings in the background, while other images record the beefed up presence of foreign warships in
the harbor. Some views show
the beginnings of reconstruction with bamboo scaffolding erected around the damaged structures.
The trials of both European men took place after the riots. Logan, whose trial began on September 20, was convicted of manslaughter
and sentenced to
seven years of servitude, which was widely believed among the Chinese to be too lenient of a punishment. In November, Diaz
was sentenced to three months
imprisonment. In both cases the trials were conducted and sentencing delivered according to European rather than Chinese law,
and their outcomes led to
increased resentment of the European presence in China.
The first half of the album concludes with various scenes of Chinese Guangzhou. After a break of eight blank pages the reader
is transported to Japan
in the year 1896. Nineteen of the 20 photographs in this section are by Kusakabe Kinbē, a Japanese photographer who worked
for Felice Beato and Baron
Raimund von Stillfried as a studio assistant and colorist before opening his own studio in Yokohama in 1881. Around 1885,
he acquired the negatives of
his former employers and those of Uchida Kuichi, as well as some of Ueno Hikoma's negatives of Nagasaki. By 1893, Kusakabe
was one of the most prominent
Japanese photographers and his work was sought after by Western customers who knew him by his first name, Kinbē or Kimbei.
His images of Japanese women,
three examples of which appear in Prat's album, were especially popular. Most of the photographs in the album, however, are
delicately colored views of
Japanese cities – Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohama, Tokyo, and Osaka – and of iconic Japanese locales such as Mount Fuji and Lake
Biwa. With the sole exception
of an uncolored view looking down a Yokohama canal towards the French consulate, Prat's self-referential choice of images,
so prevalent in the first
half of the album, is lacking in his selection of Japanese photographs.
In the pages following the photographs of Japan, Prat returned to adding earlier images from his time in China to the album.
He devotes much of the
last part of the album to documenting the European community on Shamian Island and locating himself within it. Dating from
1877 to 1883, the photographs
include large group portraits of the community gathered outdoors, as well as images of Prat and his circle of friends casually
arranged on the porches
and verandahs of their communal residences. Most of the images of the CATS players are found in this section of the album,
along with three group
portraits of the costumed attendees of the masked ball given by Mr. and Mrs. G. M. Smith of Jardine, Matheson & Co. in 1879.
Also included here are
the images of Hong Kong and Macau, all of which are dated 1879 (in the first part of the album there is a lone photograph
of Hong Kong dated 1874). As
Prat was working in Guangzhou at the time, it is likely that he traveled to these two locations for either business or pleasure.
Throughout the album, the photographs and their immediate upper and lower captions are enclosed in elaborate geometric or
floral borders hand drawn in
red or black ink. Prat used the margins outside these surrounds to write extensive commentaries. Those written below the borders
often, but not always,
refer to the image on the page, while those written above the image, and frequently also in both side margins (sometimes written
sideways), form Prat's
compendium on China in which he addresses any number of topics from history, geography, climate, agriculture, religion, language
and dialects, and
business practices to family life, sedan chairs, etiquette, costume and dress, and opium. Each subject is noted in the top
margin of the page where it
begins, and topics often continue on several successive pages. The last entry in the album is a small lexicon spanning several
pages that Prat labels
"quelques locutions pidgin english."
Cross references to the album's photographs are often made in the marginalia, as well as in the image captions. The dates
included in these texts
frequently refer to events that took place later or earlier than the dates given in the upper captions for the images, which
suggests that at some point
after the album compilation was well underway, or perhaps even completed, Prat decided to add his general treatise on China.
The album is accompanied by 21 loose albumen prints, falling into three distinct groups, and a manuscript list of photographs.
The first group
comprises eight group portraits of members of the European community taken in Guangzhou between 1877 and 1883. Six of these
portraits are also present
in the album. The other two photographs in the group are formal studio portraits. One of these portraying four mustachioed
young European men is by Li
Yong, while the other of six men, more casually arranged and dressed, is by an unidentified photographer. Some of the men
appear in both portraits.
The second group of loose photographs comprises seven views of Guangzhou. While all of them are dated on their versos "Canton
1900," the photographs
themselves were likely taken at an earlier date, as indicated by the fact that several of them relate directly to, or are
variants of, photographs found
in the album, and are assigned a number following the page number on which a corresponding image appears. Lastly, six views
of the Rhône Valley in
France taken in the 1880s by one or more unidentified photographers form the third group of loose photographs.
The list of photographs is headed "Liste de vues à demander à Canton." In it, Prat gives detailed descriptions of 19 views
of Guangzhou, including
sites within both the Chinese city and the European settlements, which he wishes to acquire. At the end of the list he explains
that these photographs
could be sold to residents of Canton or to "globe trotters" as souvenirs, and that he hopes to be the one to facilitate this.
He also explains which
photographs would be easy to obtain and which would require permission of the subjects represented, or as in the case of number
17, the festival of the
dragon boat, would need to be taken on a specific date, here "le 5me jour de le 5me lune." As evidenced by his description
of the first image, a view of
the central lane of the French Concession, Prat compiled the list sometime after 1884 ("qui, m'a-t'on dit, est aujourd'hui
complètement garnie de
maisons, alors qu'en 1884, il n'y en avait encase aucune"), and possibly as late as 1900 when he assembled the group of loose
photographs of
Guangzhou.
Contact
Library Reproductions and
Permissions
.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Disasters -- China -- Guangzhou
Hurricanes -- China -- Guangzhou
Harbors -- China -- Guangzhou
Riots -- China -- Guangzhou -- History -- 19th century
Guangzhou (China) -- Description and travel
Hong Kong -- Description and travel
Macau -- Description and travel
Pearl River Delta -- Description and travel
Shamian (China) -- Description and travel
Photographs, Original
Albumen prints -- China -- 19th century
Albumen prints -- Japan -- 19th century
Photograph albums -- China -- 19th century
Photograph albums -- Japan -- 19th century
Hand coloring -- Japan -- 19th century
Trading companies -- China
Rhône River Valley (Switzerland and France) -- Description and travel
Kusakabe, Kinbē, 1841-1932