Untitled (View on the Praya, looking east, Hong Kong) (1866–73): Art, History and Details

Untitled (View on the Praya, looking east, Hong Kong) (1866–73) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is William Pryor Floyd (British, 1834–c. 1900).

The work and its context

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

Floyd’s views of Hong Kong possess a clarity of organization and elegance lacking in most of his competitors’ photographs. The row of white, Western-style commercial buildings divides the composition horizontally into thirds. In the foreground are water and a single Chinese boat that leads the eye to the closest building. The crisp cubic forms of the buildings stand out against the uniformly dark hillside that serves as their backdrop.

Object facts

• Title: Untitled (View on the Praya, looking east, Hong Kong)
• Date: 1866–73
• Creator attribution: William Pryor Floyd (British, 1834–c. 1900)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print
• Dimensions: Image: 19.2 x 26.9 cm (7 9/16 x 10 9/16 in.); Paper: 19.2 x 26.9 cm (7 9/16 x 10 9/16 in.); Mounted: 25.5 x 26.9 cm (10 1/16 x 10 9/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2020.233

A detail from the museum

Praya, a term used in colonial Hong Kong for the road by the waterfront, came from the Portuguese word praia, which means "beach."

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.