The Sedan; A Military Officer; The Plough; A North China Pony
c. 1868
Medium
Collotype, pl. XXII from the album "Illustrations of China and its People, Volume II" (1873)
Dimensions
Upper left image: 9.2 × 12.7 cm (3 5/8 × 5 in.); Upper right image: 9.5 × 12.6 cm (3 3/4 × 5 in.); Lower left image: 11.6 × 12.7 cm (4 5/8 × 5 in.); Lower right image: 11.6 × 12.7 cm (4 5/8 × 5 in.); Album page: 34.8 × 47.2 cm (13 3/4 × 18 5/8 in.)
Classification
photography
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
236496
Art Historical Context
John Thomson's *The Sedan; A Military Officer The Plough; A China Pony* (c. 1868) is a captivating collotype plate plate XXII of his seminal *Illustrations of China its People, Volume II (1873). This image features four vignettes: a traditional Chinese sedan chair carried through bustling streets, a stern military officer in uniform, a farmer guiding a plough across terraced fields, and a North China pony symbolizing rural transport. Each photograph, meticulously sized between 9-12 cm, invites viewers into the diverse facets of mid-19th-century Chinese life. As a Scottish photographer and pio...
About the Artist
John Thomson · 1837–1921
John Thomson (1837–1921), a pioneering Scottish photographer, was born on 14 June 1837 in Edinburgh as the eighth of nine children to William Thomson, a tobacco spinner and trader, and Isabella Newlands.) After schooling in the early 1850s, he apprenticed with a local optical and scientific instrument manufacturer, where he mastered the principles of photography, completing his training around 185...