This view shows the hall of the Yongle Emperor's (r. 1402-1424) tomb. He was one of the 13 emperors buried at the Ming Tombs, located about 30 miles outside of Beijing. A woman sits on the grass just outside the front of the hall. It was taken by British photographer Thomas Child (1841-1898). The lower left corner is signed in black: T. Child, 1877. In white below: No. 157, Yung Lo's Hall, Ming Tombs.It is from "Views of Peking and its Vicinity", a series of signed and dated full-plate images; of which 208 were numbered and captioned. Most were taken between 1875 and 1880, long before Peking (Beijing) had begun to modernize. The set was sold commercially and became an important visual reference for the old imperial capital. Child generally disregarded local life: he focused on presenting Beijing as a repository of traditional monumental architecture.
