The Group Photograph as an Imbricated Ritualistic Event: Duanfang and His Altar Bronzes in Late Qing Antiquarian Praxis

Abstract

Conceptualising an alternative to the Rieglian analyses of the correlation between power and composition in group portraiture, this article proposes a ritualistic approach to understanding the group photograph and its commemorative purpose. The proposal is raised through a case study of the photograph of Tohoro Duanfang (1861–1911) and an assembly of scholarly officials with the altar bronzes in his collection. Despite the uncertainty about its date and location, the photograph has been widely published in books on Chinese ancient bronzes and the culture of collecting. This article dates, decodes and contextualises this image within the imperial tradition of reinstating ancient bronzes in Confucius worship. It also discusses photography’s primacy in the late Qing antiquarian praxis of studying, cataloguing and displaying bronzes. This study demonstrates that the process of taking a group photograph consists of a composite ritualistic event in which a ‘pro-photographic’ event is imbricated with a ‘photographic event’. This imbricated flow of event and ritual may shed light on understandings of group photographs with an intelligibility that is not only visual, but also temporal.