China during the Qing Dynasty: a selection of photos
Photo © cameralabs.org
This huge collection holds over 15,000 photos. But we will consider only a small part. But even it allows you to plunge into the world of Asian powers of the Qing dynasty.
This is not only a brilliant artistic monument of photography, but also a documentary archive covering the life of the mysterious Chinese state from the 1850s to the 1930s.
The photos were collected by Stefan Lowenteil, an American who, for his passion for his skill, received the nickname “supercollecter”. The photographs of the Lowenteil archive show the life of almost unknown China; a state that did not yet know the boom of industrial modernization.
Many photos convey to us images of monuments that have already ceased to exist, such as the “portrait” of the Old Summer Imperial Palace for Felice Beato, irretrievably destroyed during the Opium Wars.
