"Kulu" (in Chinese, i.e. Coullaud), a French Doctor during the Boxer Rebellion.

£8,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

The photos were taken between 1900 and 1901 by the French military doctor Henry Coullaud (1872-1954). As young military doctor Coullaud volunteered to join the Campaign in China. He left on 19 August 1900 on board the Alexandre III as part of the 1st Batallion of an Infantry Regiment. The beginning of the first album consists of a photo of the crew of the ship, followed by images of the stops made along the journey: Port-Said, Djibouti (with a nice shot of the Cafe du Louvre), and Singapore before reaching Northern China and the harbour at Tong-Kou (Tanggu port) forty-two days after leaving Marseilles. The French regiment then proceeded to Pao-Ting-Foo (Baoding), before settling in Ting-Tcheou (Dingzhou). Later they moved on to Tcheng-ting-fou (Zhengding fu), and Ta-kou (Dagu). All of the images in Album 1 contain larger prints and most paint a positive picture of French-Chinese relations: They cover official engagements, military parades, French celebrations on July 14th, and staged portraits of high-ranking individuals, both of Chinese dignitaries and French officers. Coullaud clearly used his medical expertise to help Chinese patients and there is an extraordinary image of him inspecting a Chinese woman lying on a table outside her home. Coullauds regiment does not seem to have been directly involved in the fight against the Boxers but one photo shows heads of Boxer rebels displayed in cages in public. The second album shows daily life in China, carefully grouped around ce

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