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General Sir Edward Francis Chapman
Untitled
[Photographs of Yarkand and Kashgar]
1873-1874
Albumen print
Sotheby's - London
Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History, 30 April 2015, Lot: 210
LL/58840
Captain Edward Francis Chapman later General Sir Edward Francis Chapman..
H. Leach and S.M. Farrington. Strolling About on the Roof of the World (London, 2003), pp.133-136
CHAPMAN'S OWN ANNOTATED SET OF HIS RARE PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN ON THE FORSYTH MISSION TO YARKAND AND KASHGAR (1873-1874). "THESE WERE THE FIRST TO BE TAKEN OF 'NATIVE' SOCIETY IN CHINESE TURKESTAN, AND ARE OF CONSIDERABLE HISTORICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC INTEREST." (Leach)
In 1869 the Amir of Yarkand and Kashgar, wishing to establish good relations between his country and India, sent an envoy to the viceroy to request that a British officer might be deputed to visit him. Sir Douglas Forsyth was accordingly instructed to travel with the envoy in order to acquire information about the people and the country. The journey to Lahore and back, a distance of two thousand miles, was accomplished in six months. The expedition was warmly received in Yarkand and was given permission to travel freely in the area.
"Chapman was captain in the Quarter Master General's Department in Lucknow, and was appointed Secretary of the Forsyth Mission, with responsibility for administration and transport. He faced the daunting task of organising the passage of "300 souls and 400 animals" along the Karakoram caravan route from Leh to Yarkand, across four of the highest passes in the world, in below-freezing temperatures. The ostensible purpose of the Mission... was to negotiate a commercial treaty with Yakub Beg who in 1867 had established himself as the independent ruler of much of Chinese Turkestan. The unstated purpose of the exercise was to counter the spread of Russian influence in a region flanking India's Northern Frontier. Before joining the Mission, Chapman took a crash course in photography with Messrs Bourne and Shepherd in Simla, where he later sent his negatives for printing (110 in all, including a few taken by Henry Trotter)." (Leach)
Chapman and Trotter's photographs, in the form of 102 hand-mounted albumen prints were used to illustrate Forsyth's now rare Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873 (Calcutta, 1875).
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