Untitled [Glimpses of India and India and its Native Princes]
a) J H Furneaux, Glimpses of India: A Grand Photographic History of the Land of Antiquity, the Vast Empire of the East: With 500 superbly reproduced camera views of her cities, temples, towers, public buildings, fortifications, tombs, mosques, palaces, waterfalls, natural wonders, and pictures of the various types of her people. Also, supplementary photographic views of Burmah, Ceylon, Cashmere and Aden, Philadelphia: Historical Publishing Company, Published in India by C. B. Burrows, care William Watson & Co., Bombay, circa 1896
With over 500 photographic illustrations (collotypes and half-tone reproductions), depicting temples, tombs, palaces, mosques, forts, waterfalls, and scenes of daily life, as well as supplementary views of Burma, Ceylon, Cashmere, and Aden. The title page is printed in bold typography, with an early colour illustration of the Jain Temple, Calcutta. Full historical text supplied by a “corps of well-known writers”, edited by J. H. Furneaux, sub-editor of the Times of India, Bombay.
11.42 x 13.78 in (29 x 35 cm)
Glimpses of India represents one of the grandest late-19th-century photographic publishing ventures devoted to India and its neighbouring territories. Issued by the Historical Publishing Company of Philadelphia and distributed in India through C. B. Burrows of William Watson & Co., Bombay, the work was marketed to both international and colonial audiences eager for visual records of the subcontinent.
The volume’s more than 500 photographic illustrations—ranging from monumental architecture to natural wonders and ethnographic “types” of people—exemplify the encyclopaedic ambitions of such publications, combining didactic aims with pictorial spectacle. The inclusion of supplementary views from Burma, Ceylon, Cashmere, and Aden expands the project’s scope to a pan-imperial geography, situating India within Britain’s wider imperial networks.
Edited by J. H. Furneaux of the Times of India, the text sought to lend authority to the images through historical narrative, though its tone often reflects the colonial gaze and hierarchies of its time. The reproductions include finely produced collotypes and halftones, often hand-tinted for added appeal, making the book both a work of art publishing and a vehicle of visual empire.
Today, Glimpses of India is valued as an important example of late-Victorian photo books, capturing both the aesthetics of early photo-mechanical reproduction and the cultural-political role of images in shaping Western perceptions of South Asia. Its survival in near-complete form, with vivid plates intact, enhances its rarity and desirability for collectors of South Asian photography and imperial visual culture.
b) Louis Rousselet, India and its Native Princes: Travels in Central India and in the residencies of Bombay and Bengal, New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1876
pp. 579 with 317 illustrations [many full-page] and 6 maps; original burgundy hardback with ornate binding, bevelled edges, gilt elephant motifs, and all edges gilt.
13.5 x 10 in (33.7 x 25 cm)
The best edition of this massive work. The author, Louis-Theophile Marie Rousselet, was a French writer, photographer and traveller, known for pioneering darkroom photography. Rousselet was in India from 1864 to 1870 and was only 18 when he arrived in India as a traveller, mainly travelling, hunting and spending time with Indian princes in their courts, but most of his time was spent in central India. In this account, he narrates his views on the different aspects of life in India. The book was originally published in French in 1875, with most, if not all, engraved illustrations from his own photographs. He learnt photography while in Baroda, and many of the plates are based on his photographs.
The travelogue narrates the life and times of the Indian Princely States in the last quarter of the 19th century. It includes 59 chapters on Bombay, Salsette, Konkan & Ghats, Deccan, Baroda, Gujarat, the Country of Bheels, Udaipur, Mewar, Ajmer, Kishangarh, Jaipur, Ambar, Sambher, Alwar, Agra, Bharatpur, Fatehpur, Dholpur, Gwalior, Datia, Jhansi, Orchha, Chhaterpur, Panna, Rewa, Baghelkhand, Govindgarh, Gondwana, Bhilsa, Sanchi, Bhopal, Malwa, Delhi, Kotur, Punjab, the Himalayas, Awadh, Kanpur, Banaras, Bihar, Bengal and Calcutta.
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EYE AND THE PRINTED EMPIRE: INDIA IMAGINED FROM PAGE TO PLATE
Spanning the height of the British Raj, Louis Rousselet’s India and its Native Princes (1876) and J. H. Furneaux’s Glimpses of India (circa 1896) represent two landmark achievements in the 19th-century pictorial and photographic imagination of India. Each stands at a distinct moment in the evolution of imperial visual culture—the former grounded in the traveller’s direct lens, the latter in mass photographic reproduction and transatlantic publishing ambition.
Rousselet’s volume, richly illustrated with engravings after his own photographs, records his extensive travels across princely India between 1864 and 1870. Trained as one of the earliest practitioners of darkroom photography, Rousselet offered European readers an unprecedented visual record of the courts, monuments, and landscapes of Central and Western India, fusing ethnographic curiosity with a romantic vision of native sovereignty.
Two decades later, Glimpses of India, edited by J. H. Furneaux of the Times of India, expanded the photographic project into an encyclopaedic spectacle. With over five hundred collotypes and halftones—including views from Burma, Ceylon, Kashmir, and Aden—it sought to catalogue the empire’s visual breadth for both colonial and international audiences. Issued by the Historical Publishing Company of Philadelphia, it typified late-Victorian publishing enterprise at its grandest scale, transforming photography into an instrument of imperial display.
Viewed together, Rousselet’s personal photographic narrative and Furneaux’s monumental compilation trace the shift from the solitary explorer’s camera to the illustrated empire of mass print. Their images—alternately intimate and panoramic—compose a visual testament to how 19th-century Europe saw, classified, and mythologised India, marking a pivotal chapter in the global history of photography and travel illustration.
(Set of two)
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