Both Irene and John Vincent lived in Beijing, where they worked for Associated Press. Irene travelled on her own to Dunhuang in the summer of 1948, capturing glimpses of her journey on her camera, as well as black and white pictures of the nearby Mogao Caves.
The following year, she returned with her husband and their two daughters. John produced 90 glass colour negatives of the Mogao Caves wall paintings. These are the very first known colour photographs of the caves.
In addition to recording Irene and John’s visits to the Mogao Caves, a region that was still hardly accessible at the time, the items in the collection also document their time in various places across China right up to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
The Vincent Collection was generously donated to the British Library in 2012 by their daughters and son, in memory of their parents.
