Juan Mencarini - Juan Mencarini was a Spanish employee of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and later commission agent in Shanghai. His largest photographic production was obtained in and around the city of Fuzhou (Fujian province) in the 1890s.

Juan Mencarini was a Spanish employee of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and later commission agent in Shanghai. His largest photographic production was obtained in and around the city of Fuzhou (Fujian province) in the 1890s.Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 2 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 3 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 7 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 6 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 5 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 4 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 8 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 12 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 11 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 10 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 9 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

[Album de 12 phot de []Mencarini J btv1b53216145d 13 - Juan Mencarini | - Juan Mencarini

-- Written by Xavier Ortells-Nicolau

Juan Mencarini Pierotti (Alexandria, June 15, 1860 - Manila, April, 29 1939) was a Spanish employee of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and later commission agent in Shanghai. In addition to his professional career, he was an accomplished amateur photographer and a key actor in the founding of the first associations of amateur photographers in the treaty ports. His largest photographic production was obtained in and around the city of Fuzhou (Fujian province) in the 1890s. Mencarini was interested in the pedagogical power of photographs (which he often reproduced in conferences and press articles) and his topics included landscapes and architecture, agriculture and local crafts, and human types.

The album reproduced here includes 11 photographs, 13 x 19cm, with a leather cover engraved with the title 'Foochow' and 'Photographs by J. Mencarini'. The album was acquired by French Custom Service employee Auguste Mouillesaux de Bernières (1848-1917) in 1893, and was donated to the Société de Géographie in 1930 by her daughter, Marie Bernières-Henraux (1876-1964).

The first image of the album was awarded the golden medal for best landscape in an exhibition organized by the Shanghai Amateur Photographic Society on February 1905. Reporting the award, Shanghai’s North China Herald noted that: “The gold medal for the finest picture in the collection has been awarded to Mr. Mencarini for a full-plate landscape—a country scene near Foochow. It is a thickly wooded lane, opening on to a mountain background, with the roofs of a little village just showing between. No one will deny that it is a splendid picture, even if is not considered any better that the same exhibitor’s view of the Sacred Fish Pond at Kushan [imatge 4 of the album], which has all the charm of picturesqueness with the added touch of life in a few figures.” (The North China Herald and Consular Gazette, 24 Feb. 1905)

More information:
• Xavier Ortells-Nicolau, “Juan Mencarini and Amateur Photography in Fin-de-siècle China”, Kritika Kultura, 30/31 (2018), https://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/index.php/kk/article/view/KK2018.03004/2679
• Juan Mencarini’s album on Gallica website