Photographs of China by Corvisart, 1900-1901
Charles Pierre René Victor Scipion Corvisart (1857—1939) was a French officer and later general. From January 1900 to July 1904, he was a military attaché with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel at the French legation in Tokyo. He followed and photographed the operations of both the Japanese expeditionary force sent to China during the so-called “Boxer Rebellion,” (1900-1901) as well as the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War. These two albums conserved by the Service historique de la défense (Vincennes) document the aftermath of the Boxer rebellion in the area of Tien-Tsin (Tianjin) and Peking (Beijing), as well as the occupation by the Eight-Nation Alliance, a military coalition that invaded China with the stated aim of relieving the foreign legations in Beijing besieged by the militias of the popular uprising called the “movement of the unity of justice and peace,” and known as the “Boxers” by the imperial powers, which were opposed to foreign concessions. The photos seem to have been taken during a trip to Northern China in the winter of 1900-1901, accompanying Japanese troops. They depict troops embarking at Hiroshima and landing at Tianjin. They document fortified positions, soldiers of the various nations in the alliance, buildings of the French canton, Japanese troops and officers, Chinese daily life, French soldiers, officers and Zouaves, various ruins and monumental Chinese architecture, and the Imperial Palaces. Only one photo seems to document the atrocities that were widespread after the defeat of the “movement for the unity of justice and peace.” It is a picture of several heads of several individuals purported to be “Boxers,” decapitated and displayed on the eastern city wall in Tianjin.
Bibliography:
Foliard, Daniel. The Violence of Colonial Photography. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022 (orig. published Édition La Découverte 2020). (146, 263)
Thiébaud, Jean-Marie. La présence française au Japon : du XVIe siècle à nos jours : Histoire d’une séduction et d’une passion réciproques. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008.