Peking the beautiful. Comprising seventy photographic studies of the celebrated monuments of China's northern capital and its environs complete with descriptive and historical notes.

Folio: [2]-155 pp.; 71 tipped-in photographic plates, monochrome or coloured (pp. 105-110 in random order, sm. defects).

Publisher's embroidered silk, padded hard boards, flat spine lettered in Chinese characters. Original two-part pictorial box (silk boards sl. frayed, box split at corners, soiled and worn).

Rare 1st ed. A fine photographic study of scenic places in Beijing, drawn from photographs taken over the course of five years by H.C. White, the art director of the Signs of the Times Publishing House in Shanghai. Incl. views of the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, South Sea Palaces, Hunting Park Pagoda, etc. Introduction by the Chinese scholar and philosopher Hu Shi (1891-1962). A nice testimony of the city’s appearance during the early Republican era, only fifteen years after overthrowing the Qing dynasty. From the preface: "The very fact that so many of the ancient landmarks - priceless in their age-old glory - are being torn from their foundations and ruthlessly destroyed, makes an album of this kind not only interesting as an art volume, but a work of immeasurable value to China and to the world, as an authentic record of picturesque Peking."