Yanguangshi

After the 1912 Xinhai Revolution, Tong Jixu started Yanguangshi to publish photo-books of ancient painting and calligraphy from the Qing imperial collections.

Through his friend Chen Baochen, who was Puyi’s teacher and some of his students such as Puru, he would borrow the art pieces and use high-resolution camera to take glass version photographs of them and use advanced photographic printing process called Corot Press to print photo-books.

In 1924, after Tong became an official (director of operation or Danglangzhong in Chinese) at the Imperial Household Department himself, he stopped borrowing any additional artworks from the court in order to avoid conflict of interest.

Since then, the business only focused on re-publishing existing editions or photo-books/art catalogs of private collections.

The photo-books include works from Wang Xizhi, Yan Zhenqing, Sun Guoting, Huaisu, Su Dongpo, Mi Fu, Guo Xi, Zhao Mengfu, and Giuseppe Castiglione, etc.