Cleveland Museum of Art acquires 734 rare photos of China

CLEVELAND, Ohio --The Cleveland Museum of Art has acquired 734 photographs of China dating from the 1850s through the early 1920s, a collection that stretches back to the early years of photography. The public will have a chance to see an exhibition drawn from the acquisition in winter 2028.The photographs come from the collection of rare book and photography dealer Stephan Loewentheil. The group includes approximately 400 works by 16 Chinese photographers, along with more than 300 photographs by British and European practitioners and a small number by American and Japanese photographers.Together, the photos bring both Chinese and Western perspectives to a period of cultural, political and social transformation.The museum plans to digitize the works and make them available through Collections Online, giving scholars and audiences worldwide access to what it calls a significant resource for the study of China’s visual and cultural history.“This acquisition builds directly on two of CMA’s great strengths: our internationally significant holdings of Chinese art and our distinguished photography collection,” said William M. Griswold, the CMA’s Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler Director, in a statement. “By deepening the museum’s representation of this important period of Chinese art, these photographs fundamentally expand the stories the CMA can tell, create powerful new connections across our collection, and establish an exceptional foundation for future scholarship.”Chinese Official, 1870s. Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839–1890). Albumen print; 25.7 x 20.9 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 2026.75Cleveland Museum of ArtSpanning portraiture, architecture, landscape and scenes of everyday life, the photographs prompt new conversations with the CMA’s existing Chinese painting, calligraphy, rubbings, textiles and Buddhist sculpture.The selection was made by Barbara Tannenbaum, Linda Butler Curator of Photography, and Clarissa von Spee, James and Donna Reid Curator of Chinese Art, in collaboration with Loewentheil. The group was chosen from approximately 8,000 photographs he assembled over more than four decades. The selection includes albumen prints, hand-colored albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, cartes-de-visite, panoramas and more. “Winnowing down the choices from 8,000 to 734 photographs was not an easy or quick process—it lasted over a year,” Tannenbaum told cleveland.com. She started pursuing the photographs in 2019.“Loewentheil’s holdings are unique in the quality and condition of the prints. He thought of this as an art collection, and that aesthetic focus led him to concentrate on acquiring works of the highest artistic and historical quality, and which were in the best possible condition,” she explained.His collection is also unique in its broad and deep representation of Chinese photographers, which is extraordinarily rare material. Most collections focus on Western photographers’ views of China.Jade Belt Bridge, Beijing, 1870s. Thomas Child (British, 1841–1898). Albumen print; 17.2 x 23.3 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 2026.65Cleveland Museum of Art“With a very few exceptions, we limited the works to those from China’s final imperial dynasty, the Qing Dynasty: works made from the time that photography reached China in the 1850s to 1912,” said Tannenbaum.“A major criterion for selection was that the museum sought works of great artistic and art historical importance, prioritizing that over subject matter,” she explained. “Another criterion was that the prints had to be rich, strong prints in excellent condition, which is rare for photographs of China from the 19th century.”A defining strength of the collection is the depth of work by Chinese photographers, whose photographs from this period are exceptionally rare in both public and private collections. Their images offer distinct perspectives on Chinese life, landscape, architecture and society from within the country. Performers, c. 1870. Attributed to Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1839–1890). Albumen print; 22.9 x 17.6 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 2026.72Cleveland Museum of ArtThe acquisition includes more than 150 works by Lai Fong (c. 1839–1890), one of the preeminent Chinese photographers of the 19th century, as well as photographs by studios and practitioners including A Chan, Tung Hing, Liang Shitai, Pow Kee Studio and Sze Yuan Ming & Co.The acquisition also brings these works into dialogue with photographs by 17 British and European practitioners who were among the first to document China in the mid-19th century. These photographers include Felice Beato, John Thomson, Thomas Child, William Saunders and Georges Morache. Together, with the works of their Chinese contemporaries, their photographs offer a multifaceted visual record of China from the late Qing dynasty through the early decades of the 20th century.Highlights include Beato’s “Album of Photographs taken in China, August–October 1860,” which documents his travels with the British army during the concluding battles of the Second Opium War. The album contains 60 photographs – including 17 multi-panel panoramas – printed by Beato himself in China and captioned in his own hand. Among them are the first photographs of Beijing and the earliest known photographs to address the human cost of war through images of fallen soldiers, said Tannenbaum.Across the collection, the photographs record historic architecture and monuments, including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City; China’s rivers, mountains and landscapes; and an unusually broad range of people and social life.The Island Pagoda from Foochow and the River Min, c. 1870. John Thomson (Scottish, 1837–1921). Carbon print; 22.2 x 28.8 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 2026.61Cleveland Museum of ArtPortraits depict members of the imperial family, government officials, diplomats, workers and women, while other photographs document occupations, customs, transportation, commerce, religious sites and everyday life. The landscape photographs also offer meaningful points of comparison with the CMA’s holdings of Chinese painting.“Over more than four decades, I have had the privilege of bringing together photographs that reveal both the remarkable artistry of early photography of China and the breadth of the people, places, and experiences it recorded,” said Loewentheil in a statement. “The Cleveland Museum of Art is an exceptional home for these works, where they can enter into dialogue with one of the country’s great collections of Chinese art and support new scholarship for years to come.”