Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - January - 2007 Issue
Antiquarian Photographs of the East Indies from Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books
Impey's Delhi arch; Maharaja's daughter and panther.
Item 1 is a collection of 69 photographs by Randolph Holmes circa 1919 from the Third Anglo-Afghan War. This time the battle was over control of outlying border provinces, British held India and Afghanistan bordering each other at the time. Again, disease was the major cause of British casualties. £2,500 (US $4,948).
Items 6-25 form a series of photos of India by Felice Beato from the period of the Indian mutiny of 1857-58 (also known as the first war for independence). It was not successful, but forced the British government to become more involved in the operation of the colony, rather than leaving responsibility to the British East India Company. Beato was an Italian photographer, and while not photographing battles, he took pictures of places that had been the scenes of confrontation. Among the separately offered photographs, item 20 is Beato's picture of the tomb of Brigadier General John Nicholson. Nicholson is said to have walked into the officers' mess tent one day and announced, "I am sorry, gentlemen, to have kept you waiting for your dinner, but I have been hanging your cooks." Evidently, Nicholson had been told that the cooks had poisoned the soup. When he demanded they taste it, they refused. He then fed some to a monkey, who died on the spot. Nicholson responded by hanging the cooks from a nearby tree. Item 20 of Beato's photographs is priced at £500 (US $990).
Item 44 is a circa 1860 photograph of the iron pillar at Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid (Delhi) by the interestingly named photographer Colonel Eugene Clutterbuck Impey. Impey was a government official who published a book of photographs from Delhi in 1865. This appears to be an outtake of one of them. £1,250 (US $2,474).
Item 47 is a collection of eight big game hunting scenes from India circa 1875, from another interestingly named colonel, Willoughby Wallace Hooper. Among the titles are "Skinning the Tiger," "Shooting Party," and "The Bear Hunt." Hooper developed a reputation for his willingness to photograph anything, no matter how unpleasant. These photos are undoubtedly more agreeable than those he took of starving peasants and executions. £2,850 (US $5,641).
Here is another hunting photograph. Item 57 is a circa 1920 picture from an unknown photographer. It is of the daughter of the Maharaja of Rewah, seated on the body of a panther that either she or someone else in her party recently shot. £850 (US $1,682).
Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books is found online at www.shapero.com, telephone +44 (0)20 7493 0876.
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