This view shows the gate tower of Qianmen and the city walls in Beijing. The foreground depicts tents, stalls, horses, and carts. It was taken by British photographer Thomas Child (1841-1898). The lower left corner is signed in black: T. Child, 1875. In white below: No. 60 Chen Men "Principal Gate" Peking. 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.
