Loo San studio photograph of three children on a bench

Title
Loo San studio photograph of three children on a bench
Year/Period
1922
Region
Penang
Material
Dimension
Image size: 13.0 x 19.4 cm,
Frame size: 27.5 x 34.5 cm
Accession No.
2017-00751
Collection of

The studio photograph shows a group of three children, sitting on a bench in front of a studio backdrop. It is stamped with the studio mark ‘Loo San 326 Chulia Street Penang.’ Studios were already established across the Strait Settlements and the Dutch East Indies by the 1840s and became increasingly prevalent in the 1850s. During the 1920s, Chinese-owned studios dominated the studio photography trade in Southeast Asia. Ranging from formal studio portraits to albums of snapshots of everyday life and stately ancestral portraits, this large group of photographs reveals the many forms of photography available and gives insight into the various aspects of the lives of Peranakans.