1998.131.476.2 (Contact Print)
Frederick Spencer Chapman
Frederick Spencer Chapman
February 14th 1937
*
Lhasa > Tsarong House
1998.131.476.2
61 x 90
Print gelatin silver
Donated 1994
Mrs Faith Spencer Chapman
British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37
Frederick Spencer Chapman
B.11 [view film roll]
SC.T.2.476
Notes on print/mount - The print has been made on Velox paper and the trade name in an oval can be seen on the back of the print. The batch development number '640' has been printed on the back in red ink [MS 28/03/2006]
Manual Catalogues - Caption in Chapman's hand-written list of negatives made whilst on the Mission to Lhasa, 1936-7 [See PRM Manuscripts Collection]: '3 children - moved [at Tsarong’s house]' [MS 28/03/2006]
Other Information - Related Images: Images prefixed with 'B' seem to have been taken during the New Year ceremonies in 1937 [MS 27/03/2006]
Other Information - Setting: "On one side of the room was a high throne for Tsarong, and next to it, on the left, another, slightly lower, for his wife, and others, lower still, for the three children" ['Lhasa: The Holy City', F. Spencer Chapman, London: Chatto & Windus, 1938, p.321] [MS 28/03/2006]
Other Information - Setting: Entry in Mission Diary for February 14th 1937: "The master's seat is a canopied divan which varies in height with the rank and dignity of the owner. Besides him on his left sit his wife and children in all their best clothes. If he is of high rank the master will be wearing a robe of yellow silk patterned with Imperial five-clawed dragons, and a round flat hat of red silk heavily bordered with fur and topped by an ornament of gold turquoise and other semi-precious stones surmounted by a ruby or amethyst button - a survival of the Chinese buttons of rank. His wife will be wearing over her skirt the striped apron worn by all married women; a brocade blouse with a scarf of plum coloured silk across her breast and one of rainbow colours round her shoulders. Her headdress will be heavy with great corals and turquoises and hung with closely woven streamers of seed pearls; more gold and turquoise ornaments set with precious stones hang down from her shoulders, and on her breast is a large star-shaped charm box of gold studded with turquoise and diamonds. Other relations who may be present sit on cushions along one side of the room on the left of the family " ['Lhasa Mission, 1936: Diary of Events', Part XIV p. 6, written by Chapman] [MS 28/03/2006]
For Citation use:
The Tibet Album.
"Children at Tsarong's new year ceremony"
05 Dec. 2006. The Pitt Rivers Museum.
<http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_1998.131.476.2.html>.
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