Untitled (Hong Kong, St. John’s Cathedral, from the Parade Ground, H.M. Regiment on Parade) (1866–73): Art, History and Details

Untitled (Hong Kong, St. John’s Cathedral, from the Parade Ground, H.M. Regiment on Parade) (1866–73) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Lai Fong (Afong Studio) (Chinese, c. 1839–1890).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Since the customers for landscape photographs were mostly Westerners, most Chinese studios focused on portraiture. Lai Fong, however, offered views of China, which set him in competition with European photographers who had monopolized that market. Here, soldiers from the Queen’s Regiment march on the Parade Ground, which sits below the Anglican St. John’s Cathedral. The picture presents two major organs of social control used by the British Empire in its colonies: the church and the military.

Object facts

• Title: Untitled (Hong Kong, St. John’s Cathedral, from the Parade Ground, H.M. Regiment on Parade)
• Date: 1866–73
• Creator attribution: Lai Fong (Afong Studio) (Chinese, c. 1839–1890)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print
• Dimensions: Image: 20.1 x 26.7 cm (7 15/16 x 10 1/2 in.); Paper: 20.1 x 26.7 cm (7 15/16 x 10 1/2 in.); Mounted: 26 x 33.3 cm (10 1/4 x 13 1/8 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2020.234

A detail from the museum

Lai Fong was the most successful nineteenth-century Chinese commercial photographer in China.

Collection credit

Sundry Art - Photography Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.