Lot 60
India and Sri Lanka
Collection of albums and photographs, 19th and early 20th century
Auction: 02 October 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
Bremner, Fred (1863-1941). Kashmir. 24 Photo-Collotype Views. Lahore: Fred Bremner, c.1910. Oblong 4to, original simulated bark covers, 24 mounted collotype photographs, covers somewhat damp-stained;
Ibid. Baluchistan Illustrated. Quetta: Fred Bremner, 1900. Oblong 4to, original cloth, 45 collotype plates (one folding), binding worn, front free endpaper loose;
India. Album of travels in India apparently relating to Frank Wyville-Thomson (1860-1918) of the Indian Medical Service, c.1900, oblong 4to post-bound black cloth album, comprising 38 albumen print photographs, 10 x 15cm, corner-mounted, pencilled captions to mount, showing British camp life and recreation, street scenes, views, etc., mainly in Faizabad, also in Multan and elsewhere, one photographed captioned ‘our house, Fyzabad’ depicting a man in front of a bungalow with address plate ‘Surg. Capt Wyville-Thomson 3rd B[engal] C[avalry]';
Sri Lanka. 14 albumen-print photographs, mainly of views in Sri Lanka/Ceylon including Colombo Harbour, Kandy, local industry ('Singalese men preparing cinnamon', 'women picking coffee'), manuscript captions to mounts, various dimensions (13.5 x 20.5cm to 22.5 x 28cm), mounted on rectos and versos of 6 album leaves;
Together with 24 other items, including 9 erotic stereoviews by S. C. Sen of Calcutta (3 with loss); mounted group portrait of the 8th Punjab Detachment on the Victory March, London, 8th June 1946; mounted photograph of an Indian cloth merchant captioned in Hindi; 3 cabinet cards by Chunni Lall and Bhawani Ram of Mathura (depicting caricatures); a large folding lithographic map of Kathiawar (repaired); 5 books in Urdu, lithographically printed, c.1900; and similar (1 carton)
Footnote
Fred Bremner was a Scottish-born photographer who spent four decades in India, starting at the studio of his brother-in-law in Lucknow, before setting up on his own and establishing branches in Quetta, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi. His body of work provides a valuable ethnographic record of the north-west frontier, and he is best remembered for his Types of the Indian Army (Quetta, 1897). Library Hub traces one copy only of Kashmir, at the British Library.