This is perhaps the definitive portrait of General Charles George "Chinese" Gordon of the Royal Engineers.

Wearing the fez and uniform of the Egyptian Governor-General of the Sudan, he gained early fame leading the Emperor of China's so-called Ever Victorious Army against rebels in the 1860s. Later as Governor of the Sudan (1877-79) he almost single-handedly put an end to slavery in that blighted province of the Ottoman Empire. He returned in 1884 to
help lead the evacuation of the Sudanese capital Khartoum in the face of the Mahdi's rebellion.

 

Ordered by Prime Minister Gladstone to abandon the city to its fate, he refused. Leading the hopeless but gallant defense of the city in the face of overwhelming odds and died when the Khartoum fell on 26 January 1885 - the day before forward elements of a British relief column reached the city.

Woodburytype Cabinet Photograph - Trimmed
The London Stereoscopic Company - Photographer
110, 108 & 106 Regent Street W., London, England
c. 1880