Kung Tai

Kung Tai (Gong Tai), Chinese photographic studio perhaps already active in the Shanghai foreign concessions in the 1860s; it lasted into the 1890s, although whether all along with the same proprietor is unclear. Kung Tai was one of those early treaty-port Chinese studios which, while serving foreign customers, also established itself in the fledgling business of local portraiture. It dealt with gentry, and on one occasion the photographer was invited by a high official up the Yangtze River to visit and record his family, including the women.

— Régine Thiriez