VIEWS OF DELHI

a)
Samuel Bourne
General View of Delhi from Fort
Circa 1860s
Albumin print mounted on card
6.6 x 9.6 in (16.5 x 24 cm)

Photograph of the courtyard of the Jami Masjid, Delhi, taken by Samuel Bourne in the 1860s. The Jami Masjid was the principal mosque of Shah Jahan's new capital city Shahjahanabad. The largest mosque in India, it was the last great architectural venture of Emperor Shah Jahan (r.1628-58), the most prolific builder of the Mughal dynasty. It took six years to build and functioned as a congregational mosque which could hold 250,000 people. Approached via broad flights of steps its three gateways lead into a huge courtyard with a central tank for ritual ablutions. The mosque is built of red sandstone with white marble. The main building is topped by three onion-shaped domes of white marble striated with thin strips of black marble and is flanked by two minarets, 130 ft high. (British Library Board)

b)
Samuel Bourne
Tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya
Circa 1860s
Albumin print mounted on card
6.6 x 9.6 in (16.5 x 24 cm)

Nizamuddin Dargah is the dargah (mausoleum) of famous Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya. Situated in the Nizamuddin West area of Delhi.

c)
Samuel Bourne.br.Interior of Palace, Diwan-i Khas or Hall of Private Audience, Red Fort, Delhi
Circa 1860s
Albumin print mounted on card
6.6 x 9.6 in (16.5 x 24 cm)

Interior view of the Diwan-i-Khas, or the Hall of Private Audience, in the Red Fort, an intricately decorated hall, supported by several pillars. The decoration consists of geometric and floral designs and covers the entirety of the hall. (The J Paul Getty Museum)

d)
Samuel Bourne
Jama Masjid
Circa 1860s
Albumin print mounted on card
6.6 x 9.6 in (16.5 x 24 cm)

The Masjid-i Jahan-Numa (World-reflecting Mosque), commonly known as the Jama Masjid of Delhi, is one of the largest mosques in India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan between 1644 and 1656 at a cost of 1 million rupees and was inaugurated by an imam from Bukhara, present-day Uzbekistan. The mosque was completed in 1656 AD with three great gates, four towers and two 40 m high minarets constructed of strips of red sandstone and white marble. The courtyard can accommodate more than 25,000 persons. There are three domes on the terrace which are surrounded by the two minarets. On the floor, a total of 899 black borders are marked for worshippers. The architectural plan of Badshahi Masjid built by Shah Jahan's son Aurangzeb at Lahore, Pakistan, is similar to the Jama Masjid, Delhi. (Wikipedia)

Samuel Bourne (1834 - 1912) was a British photographer known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870. Together with Charles Shepherd, he set up Bourne & Shepherd first in Shimla in 1863 and later in Kolkata (Calcutta); the company closed in June 2016.

In 1859, he displayed photographs at the Nottingham Photographic Society's annual exhibition. The following year, his photographs were also shown in London, at the London International Exhibition of 1862. This reception he received motivated him to give up his position at the bank and set sail for India to work as a professional photographer, arriving in Calcutta early in 1863. (Wikipedia)

Bourne was joined in 1864 by Charles Shepherd, to form 'Bourne & Shepherd', which became the premier photographic studio in India, and until it closed in June 2016 was perhaps the world's oldest photographic business.

Bourne spent six extremely productive years in India, and by the time he returned to England in January 1871, he had made approximately 2,200 fine images of the landscape and architecture of India and the Himalayas. Working primarily with a 10 x 12-inch plate camera and using the complicated and laborious Wet Plate Collodion process, the impressive body of work he produced was always of superb technical quality and often of artistic brilliance.

His ability to create superb photographs whilst travelling in the remotest areas of the Himalayas and working under the most exacting physical conditions places him firmly amongst the very finest of nineteenth-century travel photographers.

(Set of four)

NON-EXPORTABLE

This lot will be shipped unframed and will be sold in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as reference for the condition of each photograph.