Showing off your China Photographs 1900 Style

We often (including me on this blog) tend to over-concentrate on old photos of china and neglect how people who took or bought them displayed them, often when they had returned from China. I was reminded the other week while in Hong Kong and looking at several recently unearthed collections that often photographers in China sold beautiful leather and skin covered albums in which to mount the photographs. These were often works of art and beautiful objects in and of themselves and also lapped up a bit of Chinoiserie too. Here’s one that popped up for sale recently on the internet to give you an idea of how lovely these album covers could be sitting on your coffee table…