Louis-Philippe Messelier Archive

Item set

Type: Private collection See all item sets with this value; Archive See all item sets with this value
Title: Louis-Philippe Messelier Archive
Description: Louis-Philippe Messelier was a French journalist engaged in the business of wool during the 1930s. Based in the French concession of Shanghai, his photographs depicted the rapid changes occurring in Republican China.
content: The collection contains 250 photographs extracted from original stereoscopic glass plates dating approximately to 1925-30. Messelier’s grand-son has today inherited the full collection. Thus far, materials are kept in private hands. Only a selection of reproductions has been sold to private collectors.
Temporal Coverage: Twentieth century (dates CE) See all item sets with this value
Spatial Coverage: Shanghai See all item sets with this value; Beijing See all item sets with this value
Subject: Black-and-white photography See all item sets with this value; Journalistic photography See all item sets with this value; Landscapes (environments) See all item sets with this value; Portraits See all item sets with this value; Theatre arts See all item sets with this value; Costume (mode of fashion) See all item sets with this value; Street scenes See all item sets with this value; Townscapes (built environment) See all item sets with this value; Architecture See all item sets with this value
Language: French
location: Bordeaux See all item sets with this value
url: photographyofchina.com

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Shanghai Bund
Aerial view of Shanghai Bund (waitan, 外灘)
Louis-Philippe Messelier
Louis-Philippe Messelier was born in Lille in 1901, a city in Northern France. He left his hometown at 18 years old and travelled to Shanghai. He settled down in the French concession and was first involved in the business of wool in the 1930s. He juggled his business career with taking photographs as a journalist for the French newspaper “Journal de Shanghai”. Based on the content of his photographs, we can surmise that he visited Beijing and areas surrounding it (such as the Great Wall and the Ming tombs).