Key Information

Photographer

Evan Yorke Nepean

Collection

Frederick Spencer Chapman

Date of Photo

August 24th 1936

Named Person

Sir Basil Gould, Gyantse Dzongpon (East), Gyantse, Dzongpon (West), Norbhu Dhondup

Region

Gyantse

Accession number

1998.131.391.2

Image Dimensions

106 x 177

Tibetan officials, the Eastern and Western Dzongpons, greeting members of the British Mission outside Gyantse. Sir Basil Gould can be seen in profile on the left, the back of another Mission member towards the camera, two Tibetan officials facing Gould, and Norbhu Dhondup, who acted as interpreter standing on the left, in profile. Other mission staff survey the scene from the edges of the path

Further Information

Photographic Process

Print gelatin silver

Date Acquired

Donated 1994

Donated by

Faith Spencer Chapman

Expedition

British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37

Photo also owned by

Frederick Spencer Chapman

Revised Photographer

Evan Yorke Nepean

Previous Catologue Number

YN.31

Previous Pitt Rivers Museum Number

SC.T.2.391

This Image also appears in another collection

2001.35.396.12.1 2001.35.44.1

Other Information

Notes on print/mount - This print has been made on Agfa paper. A sticker with the numbers ' 83 289' has been stuck on the top edge of the print in the centre right [MS 23/03/2006]

Other Information - Setting

Other Information - Setting: It was Tibetan custom for officials to meet important visitors to a town some miles outside the town boundaries and then to escort them in. Here the Eastern and Western Dzongpon are meeting Sir Basil Gould and his party outside Gyantse. The British Mission was met by a steadily increasing number of Tibetan officials from the day before they arrived in Lhasa, whose job it was to welcome them and escort them to the city. Upon departure, escorts would accompany guests until an appropriate point of separation. Brigadier Neame recorded this process in the official Mission Diary: Diary for August 24th 1936 - "We had to time our march so as to reach the various reception places at a fixed hour. ... The lama officials wear comparatively dull claret coloured robes, but with brightly gilded red lacquer hats. They ride smartly caparisoned mules or ponies with gay saddle cloths. Lay Officials wear brightly coloured and embroidered Chinese silks. The servants have most marvellous red feathered and tasselled round fringed hats" ['Lhasa Mission, 1936: Diary of Events', Part 3 p.7, written by Neame] [MS 23/03/2006]

For Citation use:
The Tibet Album. "Gould and the Mission being received outside Gyantse" 05 Dec. 2006. The Pitt Rivers Museum. <http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_1998.131.391.2.html>.

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