
Rhyanon Demery
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"A speciality of Kung Tai's was the production of multi-part panoramas of Shanghai's Bund, and at least every two or three years, the studio produced a series of similar panoramic views of its rapidly changing architecture" (Bennett, Chinese Photographers 1844-1879, p.137). We have traced examples of the panoramas in six-, eight- and twelve-part formats — the present example being the largest version. The Moonchu copy of this exposure is illustrated by Bennett as figs. 8.13a-b and 8.14, with their binding varying very slightly from ours.
In this image, the River Huangpu is busy with various vessels such as the paddle steamers Shanghai (1873-1890) and Ichang (1873-1891), and the steam ship Tai-Wo (1881-1895) — many with arrays of clothes hung out to dry on their rigging.