Photography White Stupa on Island Qinghua
Photography White Stupa on Island Qinghua
CC BY-SA 4.0
A black-and-white photograph showing the White stupa (Baita 白塔) on Qinghua Island (Qinghuadao 瓊華島) in what is now Beihai Park (Beihai Gongyuan 北海公園) in Beijing. The park is located northeast of the Forbidden City (Gugong 故宫 or Zijincheng 紫禁城) and was once an imperial garden. The stupa was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Its misnomer in the album inventory as “pagoda” comes from the letter ta 塔, which means both stupa and pagoda in Chinese.
The photograph is the 282nd 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 Ming Pagode. (DZ, MV)
Place of manufacture: Beijing
Manufacturing technique: black-and-white photograph
Dimensions: length: 13.5 cm, width: 8.5 cm
No. of parts: 1
Current owner: Slovene Ethnographic Museum
Date of the last acquisition: 1963
Previous owners and periods of ownership: Ivan Skušek, Jr. and Tsuneko Kondō Kawase - Marija Skušek, National Museum of Slovenia, Slovene Ethnographic Museum
Object condition, handling and damage: well preserved
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