The mausoleum of Qin Shi Huangdi, in the vicinity of Xi'an in the central Chinese province of Shaanxi, with the burial mounds in the centre, built between 221-210 BC.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
A museum opened close to the burial ground of the ancient imperial city of Xi'an. The exhibits were housed in simple brick buildings.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
This figure of a military officer in armour weighs 200 kilograms. The heads of the figures are detachable.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
A horse and a warrior, still well wrapped after returning from Japan to Xi’an, were photographed during shooting for the exhibition catalogue.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
No other Western photographer had previously been allowed to photograph the entire exhibition site in Xi'an.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
The Chinese workers moved the heavy figures back and forth between storage, the improvised photographic studio and the site where they were packed up.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
One of the 280 kilogram horses being transported by forklift truck in the museum grounds.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
The excavation report listed eight different types of heads. Hair, eyebrows, nose, lips, ears and beards were added afterwards.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
Chinese experts gently enveloped the restored figure in gauze bandages.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
The figures were then driven on trucks to temporary storage at a barracks in Beijing. That was the safest place there was. Only after endless further formalities could the cargo be delivered to Germany.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
The terracotta figures have been losing moisture ever since they were excavated. They are becoming ever more fragile.
Daniel Schwartz / Pro Litteris
At the end of March 1990, Swiss photographer Daniel Schwartz, together with an assistant and a technician from Hong Kong, travelled to Lintong to photograph an exhibition catalogue on behalf of the Ostwall Museum in Dortmund.
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The planned Dortmund exhibition was the most comprehensive presentation to be shown outside of Switzerland. Fifteen warriors and horses, including a quadriga and many other finds, were put on display. Preparations lasted two years and the exhibition was supposed to have been staged in 1989. But then came Tiananmen. The bloody suppression of students in Beijing raised questions about the cultural exchange. The exhibition was postponed until the following year.
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