Lot 1

(INDIA)

An album with 26 photographs, including scenes from Calcutta [Kolkata], Delhi, and Darjeeling.

The album depicts major landmarks in each city, including temples, hotels, and colonial government buildings; street and river scenes; and portraits of local figures, including portraits of men and women described as Bhutia. The album features Darjeeling, which was a favorite destination of the colonial British, as well as bustling scenes of bridges and streets, and an Indian juggler. The images are all seemingly hand-selected, the photographs set into a stylized scrapbook. Each are interspersed with meticulously cut and collaged elements, some added embellishments on the mounts surrounding the images, and other full pages of cut elements, including fruit, flowers, bucolic country scenes, and children. Albumen prints, the images measuring 8x6 to 9¼x11½ inches (20.3x15.2 to 23.5x29.2 cm.), and the reverse, mounted recto/verso, most with captions, in ink, below the images. Small folio, disbound board covers, worn and dampstained. Circa 1880s

Great Eastern Hotel, Calcutta; Masjid Temple, Delhi [Jama Masjid]; The Monument, Delhi; Government House, Calcutta; Writers Building, Calcutta; Botanical Gardens, Calcutta; Zoological Gardens; Witch of Ghoom [Ghum], Darjeeling; Chowrasta at Darjeeling; Cashmere, Gate Calcutta; The Fort, Calcutta; Dance girl, Calcutta; Shipping on the Hooghly [Ganges]; Eden Gardens, Calcutta; Native Bullock cart; Figure of Eight Railway, Darjeeling; Bhutia woman; Egg sellers, Darjeeling; Water falls at Darjeeling; Bhutia men, Darjeeling; Barracks at Jalapahar; Howrah Bridge; Street scene (no caption); Indian juggler; Native Holiday, Calcutta; Temple (no caption, rear cover).