Royal Commonwealth Society : Sir Henry Norman Far East collection

Showing a French sentry standing on the hillside overlooking the small river marking the border between French and Chinese territory, with a village of thatched houses on the farther bank. Captioned in Norman (1895, p. 96.) France and China: watching the frontier.

Showing a group of Europeans and a squad of Chinese soldiers standing at the entrance to the fort. The outer perimeter is composed of two fences of wooden posts, with an intervening space sown with sharpened spikes. The removable gate to the fort is also protected with projecting spikes. Some of the fort buildings can be seen on the hill in the background. The wrapping of this negative contains a different caption, namely Shameen - the guarded entrance between the British concession and the native city of Canton. The caption given above, used by Norman in his book (1895), is the more likely one. Monkay (Mon Cai) is situated on the French-Chinese border.

View looking along the walls of Peking, with one of the massive corner bastions in the foreground. Captioned The first sight of Peking in Norman (1895, p. 196).

View looking along the path running between the two rows of small stone huts used for examinations. Norman (1895, p. 203) provides this description. The Government of China is a vast system of competitive examination tempered by bribery, and this Kao Chang is its focus. It is a miniature city, with one wide artery down the middle, hundreds of parallel streets running from this on both sides, each street mathematically subdivided into houses, a big semblance of a palace at one end of the main street, and little elevated watch-towers here and there. But the palace is merely the examiners Hall, the streets are three feet wide, and one side of them is a blank wall, the towers are for proctors to spy upon cribbing, and the houses are perfectly plain brick cells measuring 38 inches by 50. In the enclosure there are no fewer than fourteen thousand of them.

View from the courtyard looking towards the single storey Chinese Foreign Office buildings.

View looking along rows of instruments in the Peking Observatory. Norman (1895, p. 203) provides this description: A walk of a mile along the top of the wall brings you to the famous Observatory, and the marvellous bronzes of the Jesuit Father Verbiest, who made and eerected them in 1668. Below the wall, in a shady garden, are the much older ones which Marco Polo saw, less accurate astronomically, but even more beautiful for their grace and delicacy, and linking ones imagination closely with the romantic past; for this great globe and sextant and armillary zodiacal sphere were constructed in 1279 by the astronomer of Khublai Khan. Either the climate or their own intrinsic excellence has preserved them so well that every line and bit of tracery is as perfect to our eyes as it was to those of the great Khan himself.

General view looking along the wall as it undulates over hilly country.

View looking up a flight of steps on the wall towards a square watchtower.

Interior view of a magistrates courtroom, with the magistrates chair and desk in the centre, surrounded by large presentation umbrellas.

Showing a European woman climbing into a small covered cart, with the driver standing beside the horse. The pencilled caption on the negative wrapper reads The lady-friend of Sir Robert Hart starting for a drive in Peking. Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911) was Inspector-General of Chinese Customs 1863-1908.

View looking along the top of the city wall.

Showing two Korean girls engaged in a dance in the open air.

Scene in a garden showing two Japanese geishas, one playing a shamisen instrument, and two dancers.

This is a similar scene to Y302E/14, showing two geishas playing musical instruments, including a shamisen, and a dancer.

Showing three female musicians with their instruments, including a shamisen and kokyu.

View looking across the courtyard towards the palace buildings, with two youths seated beneath the carved images in the centre of the open space.

Full length portrait of a Malayan woman posed against the woven palm wall of a house.

Showing actors performing a play in the open air, with a row of spectators in the background.

Full length study of a dancer in action. This is the same figure who appears in the image Y302E/15.

Showing a woman seated on a cushion writing on a scroll. This image corresponds to an illustration in Norman, 'The real Japan' (1891), p. 181, captioned 'En deshabille'.

Showing two women seated on the floor, one passing a small cup of tea to the other. This image is similar to Norman, 'The real Japan' (1891), p. 29.

Showing the two women seen in the preceding plate bowing to each other. This image corresponds to an illustration in Norman, 'The real Japan' (1891), p. 29, captioned 'Good afternoon!'

Showing a woman seated on the floor with a shamisen instrument. The image is similar to an illustration in Norman, 'The real Japan' (1891), p. 230, captioned 'A tune on the moon-fiddle'.

Full length study of a Japanese woman standing on a verandah, with a carved screen in the background.

Showing a European passenger being pulled through a Japanese street in a rickshaw. This corresponds to an image used in Norman, 'The real Japan' (1891), p. 239.

A view showing Japanese women on the street. This image is similar to an instantaneous photograph reproduced in Norman, 'The real Japan' (1891), p. 298, captioned 'The visit to the flowers of Yoshiwara'.

View looking across an ornamental lake towards pavilions and houses.

Head and shoulders portrait of a girl posed against a background of leaves. This is similar to the illustration in Norman, 'The real Japan' (1891), p. 177.

Head and shoulders portrait of a girl, similarly posed to the preceding plate.