1998.131.391.1 (Film negative)
Raw Image
Evan Yorke Nepean
Frederick Spencer Chapman
August 12th 1936
Sir Basil Gould, Gyantse Dzongpon (East) Gyantse, Dzongpon (West) , Norbhu Dhondup
Gyantse
1998.131.391.1
61 x 91
Negative film nitrate
Donated 1994
Faith Spencer Chapman
British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37
Frederick Spencer Chapman
Evan Yorke Nepean
YN.31
SC.T.2.391
2001.35.396.12.3 2001.35.46.1
In Negative - 'YN 31' has been scratched into the negative in the bottom left hand corner [MS 23/03/2006]
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_1998.131.391.1.html>.
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