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Photofair Shanghai 2019
NEWLY DISCOVERED DAGUERREOTYPES
REWRITE THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN CHINA
An extremely rare and sensational discovery of a collection of daguerreotypes, taken between 1844 and 1845, enriches the precious iconography related to the arrival of photography in China and uncovers the first known photograph of Shanghai.
The nine quarter-plate daguerreotypes in the collection represent Chinese and Europeans on ships or in other settings (five images), the Tea Garden in Shanghai, a Lazarist missionary, a European woman, and a selfportrait of the photographer.
We attribute these photographs to Natalis Rondot (1821–1900), a French historian and economist from Lyon who was a commercial representative in the diplomatic mission of Théodore de Lagrené in China between 1844 and 1846, for the negotiation of the Treaty of Whampoa. Rondot left France from Brest on 20 February 1844 on board the Archimède, a steam corvette of the mission equipped with daguerreotype facilities specially requested for the trip from the Ministère de la Marine. As delegate of the Lagrené mission, Natalis Rondot was in Shanghai in October and November 1845 to study the textile industry.
The exceptional image of the Tea Garden in Shanghai taken by Rondot in 1845 is now the first known photograph of the city. The earliest reliable traces of photographers in Shanghai date back to 1852 (itinerant daguerreotypists Düben and Saurman), and the earliest images that have reached us today were taken in 1857 (Robert Sillar’s calotypes, albumen prints by William Vacher). The discovered daguerreotypes thus move the chronology of photographs of Shanghai forward by more than a decade.
The nine plates were found in their original wooden storage box and most have been mounted in a period-style framing. OstLicht Gallery will bring to Photofairs | Shanghai three of the most remarkable works from the collection – Tea Garden in Shanghai, Two Chinese Men on Board a Chinese Ship, and the Presumed Self-portrait of Natalis Rondot. It will also be the global debut of this momentous new discovery.
