The Orient has always fascinated the West. Part of China"s mysterious allure has stemmed from the fact that it remained virtually invisible to all but a handful of Europeans until the mid-19th century. Fortunately, the advent of photography coincided with the opening of China to the West and provided us with an historic legacy of the look and texture of an age-old civilization. In these masterpieces of photography, we see the landscape, people, and events that shaped the world"s last great hidden empire. The camera was witness to the capture of the forbidden city of Peking, the fabled treasures of the imperial Summer Palace, the exotic beauty of Chinese art and architecture, the unusual ethnographic types inhabiting remote regions at the "roof of the world," and, finally, the everyday life of a culture destined for radical, irrevocable change. These photographs collected over the last four years from archives in Europe, American, and Asia, have been unknown to the public until now. They include images by Thomson, Miller, Beato, Wilson and Mennie - names familiar to historians of photography. But, additionally, this collection emphasizes the significant contribution of lesser known photographers to our understanding of what China was like in the final decades of the Dragon Throne.