James Riley Sever Lantern Slide Collection

Stereopticons 1875-1877; undated mostly black and white and a few hand-colored, some captioned and numbered, assembled by an unknown source to depict views of Chine, including images of the imperial Summer Palace, in particular the ruins of the Yuanmingyuan taken in 1877 by amateur photographer Thomas Child; the environs of Peking (Beijing), including the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, the observatory, pagodas, the Temple of Heaven and others; a monastery near Foochow (Fuzhou); views of Formosa (Taiwan); a Canton street scene; villages; Chinese workers in various activities; a portion of an English-Chinese lexicon; and works of art depicting Prince Kung, Sir Harry Smith Parkes (1828-1885), "Ward of Salem" [likely William Hayes Ward (1835-1916)], and Christopher Columbus.

William Hayes Ward (1835-1916) was a Congregationalist minister, Orientalist, and editor of the "The Independent", a weekly religious newspaper. Sir Harry Smith Parkes (1828-1885) was a British diplomat who worked mainly in China and Japan.

FSA A1998.01

Sever, James Riley

Child, Thomas

Columbus, Christopher

Parkes, Harry, Sir, 1828-1885

Ward, William Hayes, 1835-1916

China

Canton (China)

Beijing (China)

Taiwan

China -- Description and Travel

Donated by James Riley Sever, 1998. Slides were obtained by Sever from Mrs. Barker, a neighbor of his sister's in Fairlington (Alexandria, Virginia) while she was moving in the summer of 1962. The slides were to be discarded as garbage. Then, stored in closet for 35 years while Sever was employed by as a Foreign Service Office of the United States Information Agency.

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Lantern slides

James Riley Sever Lantern Slide Collection. FSA.A1998.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Organized in 2 boxes (.5 linear ft.) by slide number and topic.

Lantern slides

Collection is open for research.