Photographs for Diplomacy, Commerce, and Science Identifying Individuals and Locations in Giacomo Caneva’s Images of China

Giacomo Caneva was one of the first professional photographers to travel to East Asia. Possessing a deep knowledge of photographic techniques, he owned a shop in Rome, and was well‑known among European artists and tourists who visited the city for his images of Roman monuments, landscapes, and genre scenes. In 1859, he traveled to Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Huzhou via Calcutta as a member of the Castellani‑Freschi Expedition, whose aim was to collect healthy silkworms to mitigate the effects of pébrine, a silkworm disease that had damaged silk production in Europe.