Photo 212/4

Modern buckram-bound album measuring 520 x 455 mm, containing 38 albumen print views of architecture at Avadaiyarkoil, Pudukkottai and Thanjavur. The prints are mounted on card, within a tinted border with the printed legend, 'India by Captain Lyon.' A letterpress caption label, with Lyon's assigned number, is pasted beneath each image, with a lengthier letterpress description of the subject of each photograph pasted on the verso of the mount. These longer descriptions are extracted from Lyon's Lyon's 'Notes to accompany a series of photographs prepared to illustrate the ancient architecture of southern India' (Marion and Co., London, 1870), edited by James Fergusson. This series of photographs (contained in eight volumes, APAC Photo 212/1-8) was commissioned by the Government of Madras in 1867, and the work undertaken by Lyon between November 1867 and July 1868. The photographs in the present volume were taken on his first tour, between November 1867 and April 1868.