A woman with bound feet, lying on a bench in a photographer’s studio, with a book

University of Bristol - Historical Photographs of China reference number: Ch-s04. The woman in this posed studio photograph is looking towards the camera and holding a folded book. A similar image of this scene was reproduced on post cards, depicting the woman looking at the book in her hands, as if reading, with captions such as ‘RICH CHINESE LADY or ‘THE BOUND-FOOTED SHANGHAI LADY’. The woman may well have been a courtesan (prostitute) and the photograph might have been taken in Shanghai. This photograph was pasted to a page removed from an old album. See Ch-s03 (same flooring).