In 1859, the London firm Negretti and Zambra (specialising in the manufacture and sale of photographic and scientific equipment) published a series of stereographs of Hong Kong and Guangzhou taken by the Swiss photographer Pierre Joseph Rossier (1829-c. 1897), who had been sent to create a supply of images. Rossier was the first professional photographer to conduct a photographic tour in the Far East with the specific aim of bringing back to Europe commercial views of the people and places he had seen. Rosser was in China between 1858 and 1862 and produced a series of more than 80 views and portraits. In December 1858, he opened a temporary portrait studio in Hong Kong. The importance of Rossier’s pictures is that the are the first commercial views of China to be sold in the West.