19th-century panorama of the Bund up for sale
Print Edition
A RARE early panorama of Shanghai, taken by a British photographer in the early 1870s, is to be auctioned at Sotheby’s in London today.
The newly-discovered photograph of the Bund is made up of 13 sections and is over 3 meters long.
Photographer Henry Cammidge’s work shows a sweeping view of the Shanghai landmark and is thought to be one of the first panoramic photographs of the area.
Richard Fattorini, a Sotheby’s director, said: “It’s a very exciting discovery. This is the largest panorama made of Shanghai in the 19th century, and we only knew it was produced because before the panorama emerged on the market, the only mention we had was in a newspaper, saying the excellent 13-part panorama of the riverfront was taken by Henry Cammidge. But we never saw it until it was brought to Sotheby’s.”
On the well-preserved photograph, port facilities, buildings, sailing vessels, steamships, plants and farms on the waterfront can be easily seen. Historic buildings including the Garden Bridge, the Shanghai Club and St Joseph’s Church can also be identified.
“He took 13 individual photographs and joined them together to complete the very long panorama of the Bund because it was impossible to take a single panorama at that time, and altogether it is 3.2 meters long. It’s wonderful it survived at all,” Fattorini said.
He said the photograph was owned by Richard Simpson Gundry, a British journalist who lived in Shanghai during the late 19th century working as China correspondent for The Times and as editor of the North China Herald. He believed it was Gundry who had written about the panorama in his newspaper.
“I suspected that Cammidge was a young man with a lot of financial problems, he had to sell his photographs to tackle those problems as a professional photographer, and it’s likely that Gundry liked his photos and bought them from the photographer directly,” Fattorini said.
At today’s sale, 26 other old photographs of Shanghai and Suzhou will also be auctioned. An estimated value of 50,000 to 70,000 pounds (US$84,000 to US$118,000) has been put on these photographs.
“These are very important historical photographs, and I think that anybody who lives or works in Shanghai or has any connection with Shanghai would love to own things like this. They are so special, but many collectors in Europe and America like Chinese photographs as well,” Fattorini said.
There had been inquiries from all over the world, including Hong Kong, the US and England, he said.
Last May, a rare panorama of 19th-century Beijing was sold by Sotheby’s for around 220,000 pounds.
“Although the panorama taken by Cammidge was 13 years later than the Beijing one, it’s the largest one of Shanghai at that time,” Fattorini said.
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