WHITE (JOHN CLAUDE)

Tibet and Lhasa. Photographs by J.C. White, Esq., C.I.E., Calcutta, Johnston and Hoffmann, [1908]

Footnotes

A RARE SERIES OF IMAGES FROM YOUNGHUSBAND'S TIBET MISSION OF 1903-1904. Johnston and Hoffman's promotional catalogue of 1905 mentions that the images were initially issued individually or in albums, as half-tone or carbon prints. They were later issued in a two volume set with letterpress descriptions by C.B. Bayley, dated 1907-08. These were almost immediately withdrawn from circulation for fear that the information contained would reveal classified details to the Chinese. Consequently, very few copies remain and are exceptionally rare. Hardly less rare is the single-volume version offered here was published a few months later.

When the 1903 expedition was formed White had already been in Sikkim for at least fifteen years. Together with the ambitious Younghusband, and supported by two hundred Indian troops, the expedition was to force the Tibetans to trade with British India, and to investigate concerns that Russia was gaining influence in Lhasa. Kurt and Pamela Meyer, In the Shadow of the Himalayas: A Photographic Record of John Claude White 1883-1908, note that "[White's] incomparable photographs have thus turned out to be the only lasting legacy of the ill-fated adventure of the Imperial Raj into Tibet".

Images in this volume include: two views of Khambajong, the fort that was the first place visited by the Mission and where initial negotiations took place; the Abbot at Khambajong; Gyantze Jong; Debung monastery; a group of lamas of Debung monastery; four views at Nejung monastery; stewards and senior lamas of Sera monastery; the entrance to Lhasa; eight views of the Potola, the palace of the Dalai Lama; a portrait of Ti Rimpochi, the Regent of Tibet with whom "the Dalai Lama left the ecclesiastical seal when he fled, and it was he who affixed the seal, and his own, to the Treaty signed in the Potola on 7th September 1904"; "The Shapes", or the Executive Council of Four and a group portrait of Tongsa Penlop and his retinue.

Provenance: Searight, pencil ownership inscription on title.