Photo 971

Imprint: London: Cundall, Downes, and Co. 168, New Bond Street. 1865.

Folio, half-leather volume, red cloth boards, measuring 345 x 450 mm, with prints mounted recto only on card leaves, with brief descriptive letterpress caption labels pasted beneath each image. Beyond a printed titlepage and list of photographs, there is no additional letterpress. The volume was originally in the European Printed Books Collection (pressmark X.600) and was transferred to Prints and Drawings Section in 1996. A publisher's advertising flyer for the publication offers some further information regarding the work and the principles of selection of the material included: 'The views of which this work consists have been carefully selected by the celebrated architect and art connoisseur, Mr. James Fergusson, out of an extensive collection of negatives taken by Capt. Impey, and are pronounced by him to be the most interesting series, both from an architectural and a general point of view, which has ever been brought to England. They comprise views of the chief points of interest in Delhi, Agra, and their vicinity; as also of Muttra, Bindrabun, Deeg, Ulwur, Ambher, Jeypoor, Boondee, Jhalra-Puttun, etc.; together with plates illustrative of native caste, costume, and habits ... People interested in Indian architecture will find in this work the means of a complete course of study, ranging from the ancient Hindoo and Jain temples, through the transition period, down to the most finished erections of the Mahometan Empire; and from the rise of the modern Hindoo style of ecclesiastical and domestic architecture to its most recent developments under the free-trade in ideas and the national intercommunication, which have followed the establishment of British rule...From an historical point of view the series is not less valuable, as it embraces some of the earliest and most important seats of Hindoo and Mahometan power, and many scenes to which a fatal interest has been imparted by the events of 1857...The work consists of Eighty Plates ... and is offered at the low price of eight guineas in England, or ninety rupees in India, in order to place it within the reach of a larger circle of purchasers. To each photograph are affixed a few words of description, prepared under the supervision of Mr. Fergusson...'