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
Rights
Public Domain
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 pioneering ethnographer, Thomson traveled extensively in China during the 1860s and 1870s, capturing over 600 images that formed one of the first photographic surveys of Qing dynasty society. Collotype, a photomechanical process invented in the 1850s, allowed for exquisite reproductions with fine tonal gradations, making his detailed documentary style accessible in print—a revolutionary step for photography's role in publishing. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography and Media department, this work holds immense cultural significance. It offers a rare, unromanticized glimpse into everyday customs, occupations, and landscapes, preserving a vanishing world amid China's turbulent modernization. Thomson's empathetic lens not only documents but humanizes his subjects, bridging East and West for generations of museum visitors.
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...