VARIOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS

细节
VARIOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS

The People of India. A Series of Photographic Illustrations with Descriptive Letterpress, of the Races and Tribes of Hindustan,...., London: Wm. H. Allen & Co. for the India Museum, 1868-75

Eight volumes, edited by John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye, "originally prepared under the authority of the Government of India, and reproduced by order of the Secretary of State for India in Council", with 480 albumen prints (numbered 1 - 468 but including three 'A' numbers and nine variants), various sizes to approx. 9 x 6¾ in., many with arched tops or trimmed oval, printed titles and plate numbers on mounts, descriptive texts, each volume with title page and contents, Vol. I with Preface and lists of contibuting photographers and authors, original decorated cloth, gilt, resewn, relined and re-backed in black leather, titled on front covers and in gilt on spines, 4to. (8)
出版
Desmond, Victorian India in Focus, pp. 36-37 and pl. no. 37; Worswick & Embree, The Last Empire, pp. 6-7 and p. 18 (illus.) there uncropped.
展览
New York, The Asia House Gallery, The Last Empire, Photography in British India, 1855-1911, 1976.

拍品专文

The first volume lists those photographers who participated as follows: J.C.A. Dannenberg, Lieut. R.H. de Montgomery, Rev. E. Godfrey. Lieut. W.W. Hooper, Major Houghton, Capt. H.C. McDonald, J. Mulheran, Capt. Oakes, Rev. G. Richter, Shepherd & Robertson, Dr. B. Simpson, Dr. B.W. Switzer, Capt. H.C.B. Tanner, Capt. C.C. Taylor and Lieut. J. Waterhouse. It is noted that other contributors' names were not forwarded from India.

This series of portraits was commissioned by Lord Canning, the first Viceroy of India. Canning's interest in the use of photography to document the people and culture of India proved highly influential and Lady Canning, as patron of the Bengal and Madras Photographic Societies, was equally supportive. This series is recognised as the first major ethnographic work to use photographs. Two hundred sets were produced, of which half were for official use. The prints were made by William Griggs in London, copied from original prints supplied by the photographers, the negatives apparently staying in India.