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Fig. 3.5.a. Chinese artist
copying a photograph
for the export trade,
anonymous,
photo, 1860s.

Fig. 3.5.b. A Hong Kong
artist, John Thomson,
photo, 1873.

and cultural superiority (“free and enlightened squares of larger size are then penciled on the
citizens”) – is noticeable. ivory and filled in from the photograph. 89
Sea captains and naval officers no longer had
to be there in person. They provided a While the early daguerreotypes were mostly only
daguerreotype and had full portraits of their available in monochrome colours, a Chinese
loved ones or of themselves copied and enlarged studio artist could produce such a portrait on
in minute detail by Chinese painters. In his vivid canvas or ivory, in any size wanted, in every
description of a painters annex photo studio in colour of the rainbow with often stunning visual
the article ‘Hong-Kong photographers’ in the effects.
British Journal of Photography, pioneer and Other visual examples of this ‘copying
photographer, John Thomson (1837-1921) practice’ by Chinese painters in the second half
illustrates the fluid transition between these two of the nineteenth century are given by photo-
art businesses: graphers. (Figures 3.5.a. and 3.5.b.) Both
examples are photographic portraits of a
We are in a small room, the walls of which are anonymous Chinese painter copying a photo-
hung with portraits, some in oil and of a large graph. The first one is tentatively dated in the
size, for the firm paints on canvas. […] There are 1860s, as Richard Vinograd argues in Qing
four or five artists at work in the light part of Encounters, and the second is taken by the near-
the room and verandah copying photographs, on contemporary photographer Thomson, who,
a large scale, in oil. […] There is an old man in amongst other photographic accounts of his stay
this establishment. He is a miniature painter on in Hong Kong in the early 1870s, captured ‘A
ivory, whose work is held in high estimation for Hong Kong artist’ in his studio. 90
its delicacy, careful drawing, and beauty of Both pictures stage a complex “contest of
coloring. His work is done chiefly from media, agencies, and cultures”. 91 Inspired by
photographs. If the subject has to be enlarged he Vinograd’s view on the first photo, we can
places over the photograph a piece of glass analyse the second one in the same way. The
marked with small squares. Corresponding primary subject is a Chinese painter at work,

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89 Thomson 1872, reprinted in Wue et al. 1997, 134.
90 Vinograd 2015, 20-21. Thomson 1873-4, vol. 1, plate IV; Thomson 1982, n.p.
91 Vinograd 2015, 20.