Inside page of the book collection Photo: Courtesy of Princeton Asia (Beijing) Consulting Company

 
A collection containing over 3,000 precious old photos of the Dunhuang grottoes in Northwest China’s Gansu Province has arrived in China after being kept in the US for decades, Princeton University Press said on Thursday.

The book collection, named Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves, was jointly published by The P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art at Princeton University and Princeton University Press.

The book collection is an organization of the photos in the Lo Archive, which includes photos of the Mogao Grottoes and Yulin Grottoes shot in the 1940s.

Mogao Cave 158. Middle Tang (781–848) Reclining Buddha, Parinirva¯n?a scene. West wall. Lo Archive photograph, 1943–44. Princeton University (Lo 158-10).Photo: Courtesy of Princeton Asia (Beijing) Consulting Company

The Lo Archive is a photographic archive created in the 1940s by James C. M. Lo (1902–1987) and his wife, Lucy L. Lo (b. 1920), who photographed the Buddhist caves at Dunhuang, featuring more than 3,000 of the original black-and-white photographs.

The archive has been kept in Princeton University for almost 80 years, and didn’t return to China until recently in the form of a nine-volume book collection.

In order to ensure the correct location of each cave in each picture and the age of each wall painting, the compilation of the book lasted for 13 years, with the help of many academic agencies and a string of authorities in Dunhuang Studies and East Asian Studies.

In addition to the photos, ten essays can also be found in the book discussing the meaning of the grottoes in Chinese art history.