Photography Southwest Corner of the City Wall

A black-and-white photograph showing the landscape in front of the southeastern section of the Beijing city wall, the Outer City (Waicheng 外城). This was where the Han Chinese population lived. It was a world completely separate from the other two parts of Beijing, with theatres, restaurants, majiang 麻將 casinos, opium smokehouses, various street fairs, and markets. A camel caravan is in the foreground, with the southeast fort on the city wall in the background. Camels and camel caravans were a common subject of early photographers in China. Camel cargo entered China via the northern route through Central Asia and what is now the Xinjiang 新疆 Autonomous Region. Camels were used for local transportation of goods, mainly coal from nearby mines. In China, they were called “desert ships” because of the way they were able to walk on sand.

The photograph is the 114th of 449 photographs of Beijing and its surroundings in the album of Ivan Skušek Jr., purchased during his stay in Beijing (1914–1920). In the handwritten inventory of the album, the photograph is referred to as Südwest-Ecke der Stadtmauer. (DZ, MV)