CLEVELAND, OH.- The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) today announced the acquisition of 734 photographs of China dating from the 1850s through the early 1920s. Acquired from the collection of rare book and photography dealer Stephan Loewentheil, the group includes approximately 400 works by 16 Chinese photographers alongside more than 300 photographs by British and European practitioners, along with a small number of American and Japanese photographers, bringing together Chinese and Western perspectives on a period of profound cultural, political, and social transformation.
The acquisition significantly expands the CMA’s photography and Chinese art collections, adding particular depth to its collection of 19th-century Chinese art. Spanning portraiture, architecture, landscape, and scenes of everyday life, the photographs prompt new conversations with the CMA’s existing holdings of Chinese painting, calligraphy, rubbings, textiles, and Buddhist sculpture.
“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. “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.”
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. Drawn from approximately 8,000 photographs assembled by Loewentheil over more than four decades, the group–– including albumen prints, hand-colored albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, cartes-de-visite, panoramas, and more––was selected for both its historical importance and exceptional artistic and material quality.
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. The 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 substantial representation of Chinese photographers distinguishes the group from many institutional and private collections of early photography of China, which are dominated by Western photographers.
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, including 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 multipanel 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.
Also included is Thomson’s Foochow and the River Min, produced following the Scottish photographer’s travels into mainland China after establishing a studio in Hong Kong in 1868. Considered Thomson’s most accomplished photographic book, the complete CMA volume contains 80 carbon prints. Only seven copies are known to survive, and not all are complete.
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. Portraits 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 celebrated 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 Stephan Loewentheil. “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.”
The first exhibition drawn from the acquisition is planned for winter 2028. CMA also plans to digitize the works and make them available through Collections Online, providing scholars and audiences worldwide with access to this significant resource for the study of China’s visual and cultural history.
