John Thomson
1872
Ruin of church, Macao, China

Photograph
Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Library no. ?, Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
 
The ruins of St Paul's, Macau, 1870. The ruinous church of St Paul, which stands adjacent to the Mount Fortress was first constructed in 1580 by the Jesuit mission, and then rebuilt from 1602. The Baroque-style stone façade was completed in 1627 by a group of exiled Japanese Christians. The church was burned down in 1835. The surviving façade, with its four tiers of colonnades, is covered with carvings and statues that eloquently illustrate the early days of the Christian Church in Asia, and is regarded by many as a perfect fusion of western and eastern cultures. There are statues of the Virgin and saints, symbols of the Garden of Eden and the Crucifixion, angels and the Devil, a Chinese dragon and a Japanese chrysanthemum, a Portuguese sailing ship and pious warnings inscribed in Chinese.
 
Bears Thomson's negative number: "287"
 
LL/97063