CHINA AND SOUTH INDIA [spine title]. AN ALBUM OF 41 BLACK & WHITE ALBUMEN PHOTOGRAPHS, A SELECTION OF BOTH VILLAGE AND LOCAL IMAGES, AND PROFESSIONAL VIEWS OF TEMPLES AND ARCHITECTURAL SITES.

NP: np, nd [ca. 1866 - 1879]. Oblong photo album, 11 x 16 in., bound in 3/4 leather and cloth boards, elaborately embroidered with a gilt threaded dragon. Gilt title on spine. Professional photos laid down on stiff card stock mounted on cloth tape stubs, one photo to a page, recto and verso, varying in size from 5.75 x 8 in.; 6.5 x 8.5 in.; 8.75 x 11.5 in.; to 7.5 x 12 in. The first 25 images are without captions [except two labelled "Botanical Garden," and one "Sungai Pinang," a fishing village in West Sumatra], numbers, or photographer's name. They depict an egg-shaped temple [possibly Kaunghmudaw Pagoda in Myanmar]; thatched roofed houses of a village on a river; tree lined avenues; people in traditional dress (the women holding furled umbrellas); a man pulling two people in a two-wheeled cart; the occasional building or waterfall; a line of small fishing boats in a harbor; a traditional palanquin; and many other scenes of daily life in Southeast Asia. Although there is no photographer's name, several of the images can be identified as the work of French photographer Emile Gsell, who had a studio in Saigon from 1866-1879 in the French colony of Cochinchina [ie: Vietnam].
The other 16 views are more formal, most with captions in the negative, numbers, and the name of [Samuel] Bourne. These show the Carved Stone Temple, Tangore; Great Pagoda & Stone Bull, Tanjore; Seringham Pagodas, Trichinopoly; Facade Mundapum, Trichinopoly; Madura, the South Gopuram from the Golden Lily Tank; and others. All are very good, bright. Item #70518

Emile Gsell (1838-1879) was invited by Ernest Doudart de Lagree to accompany him as the photographer for his 1866 French Mekong Expedition. Although not identifiably part of the group of photos in this album, the expedition visited the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Gsell contributed to the early documentation of the site, following in the footsteps of John Thomson, the first westerner to photograph there. Gsell continued to work in Vietnam, setting up his studio in Saigon in 1866, the first commercial photographer to do so. He worked there until his death in 1879. [see: Terry Bennett's book "Early Photography in Vietnam," (Amsterdam Univ. Press: 2020), pp. 60-99].
Samuel Bourne (1834-1912), an Englishman, arrived in India in 1863, bringing his skills as a photographer to the hill station of Simla in the foothills of the Himalayas. He initially partnered with William Howard, then Charles Shepherd entering a burgeoning market for professional photographs of the continent for the European market. According to his brief biography by John Falconer in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Shepherd engaged in studio photography while Bourne made his reputation with topographical and architectural views, with an eye for detail. His expeditions took him from Simla to Chini and Spiti; to Kashmir; and to the source of the Ganges at the base of the Gangotri glacier. He expanded the company's repertoire of photographs with a trip through southern India, including the images represented here. Along with his photos, he published text documenting his travels and "established his own reputation both as a sensitive interpreter of the Indian landscape and as a determined traveller willing to undergo hardships and danger to obtain the perfect negative." The firm of Bourne and Shepherd expanded operations to Calcutta and to Bombay, becoming one of the most successful commercial photography studios in India. Bourne sold his interest in the firm and returned permanently to England in 1870.

Price: $6,000.00