Photo 883

Leather bound album measuring 345x435mm, with elaborately carved ebony panel laid onto front cover, decorative silver clasps and watered silk endpapers. The panel, very finely carved overall with floral designs, is inset with nine miniatures painted on ivory: four of these are portraits (Bahadur Shah, Shah Jahan, Mumtaz, one unidentified), the remaining five are architectural subjects, showing (clockwise from top left), the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Akbar's Tomb at Sikandra, the Husainabad Imambara at Lucknow, the Red Fort at Delhi, the Taj Mahal at Agra (in centre). The album contains the bookplate of Phiroze K. Randeria, which incorporates Parsee designs and figures with the inscription 'Humata Hukhta Huvereshta'. The album was originally housed in a lacquered wooden box, painted with floral motifs and lined with velvet. Due to its fragility, this has now been boxed separately. The album is contained in a specially made box (constructed in the OIOC Conservation Bindery), inscribed on the outside, 'Presented to the British Library by Phiroze K. Randeria in loving memory of his noble parents Kawashah & Piroja Randeria.' Prints are mounted one to a page, recto only, and show topographical and architectural views in Delhi, Agra, Dig, Lucknow, Shimla, Srinagar and other locations. Prints are uncaptioned and titles used in the print listing have been taken from the Bourne & Shepherd catalogue.

Process = Albumen prints

Photographers = Samuel Bourne, ;