Set of Two Photographs of Bombay Castes

a) William J Johnson
Chamars
Circa 1860s
Albumen print
9 x 7 in (22.86 x 17.78 cm)

b) William J Johnson
Coach Coonbis, Roman Catholic of Salsette
Circa 1860s
Albumen print
9 x 7 in (22.86 x 17.78 cm)

Set of 2 mounted albumen photographs depicting members of tribes and social classes in Bombay.

Although information on British photographer William Johnson is scarce, it is recorded that Johnson worked as a clerk from 1848 until 1851in Bombay [Mumbai]. In 1852, Johnson was promoted to the position of an assistant in the General Department in Girgaum, Bombay, and worked as an assistant throughout Mumbai until 1860-1861. Although Johnson was trained as a civil servant, he practised photography extensively, and, as early as 1852, he had established a photography studio on Grant Road producing daguerreotypes and subsequently albumen prints made from wet plate collodion negatives.

Johnson was one of the founding members of the Bombay Photographic Society in 1854, and served as the society's Joint Secretary, as well as co-editor of its journal. In 1856, the Bombay Photographic Society published the Indian Amateur's Photographic Album, of which Johnson would become one of the main contributors. For a brief period in 1858, Johnson partnered with William Henderson to create photographs for the Indian Amateur's Photographic Album, which ran for a total of 36 issues from 1856-1858.

The individual photographs taken by Johnson and illustrated in Photographs of Western India served as visual indications of a culture and landscape. The images were, according to Stuart Macmillan, "designed to present an exotic image of India, both to function as souvenirs for local residents, and to fuel the imaginations and preconceptions of the British at home by providing images of a distant empire."

A number of Johnson's photographs were reused from the Indian Amateur's Photographic Album for Johnson's Photographs of Western India, and a few years after the Indian Amateur's Photographic Album ceased publication, a number of photographs from it reappeared in Johnson's publication The Oriental Races and Tribes, Residents and Visitors of Bombay (1863 and 1866). This book, authored and photographically illustrated by Johnson, is considered the first ethnologic writing on India published with photographs.

(Set of two)

NON-EXPORTABLE

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