Object size: (Mount) 33.0 x 40.1 x 0.1 cm,
Image size: 20.2 x 29.4 cm
This photograph shows a group of men from the Anglo-French Trading Co Ltd. Printed on the mounting board is the studio mark: The Eastern Studio. "Presented by Mr Tok Cheng Tuan" is inscribed beneath the photograph.Eastern Studio was set up by the early 1920s by Lee King Yan (1877–1957), who was also the founder of Lee Brothers Studio. A well-respected photographer in Singapore, newspapers lauded him as "one of the pioneers of photography" in Singapore and the colony’s "Grand Old Man of Photography" at the time of his passing.Originally from Guangdong province, the Lee family set up more than a dozen photographic studios in Southeast Asia, including eight in Singapore: Lee Brothers Studio, Eastern Studio, Quan Hing, Tin Seng, Yong Fong, Koon Sun, Venus Studio, and Lee Weng Sun.Photography arrived in Singapore in 1841. By the 1860s many Europeans had established photography studios in Singapore, followed closely by the Chinese and Japanese. By the early 20th century, Chinese- and Japanese-run photography studios almost completely dominated the industry, not only in Singapore, but across Southeast Asia.
