Untitled [Set of 4 Vintage Bombay City Views]
Samuel Bourne
View from Oriental Bank, Bombay
Circa 1880s
Albumen print mounted on paper
Titled in negative (lower left)
9.3 x 11.2 in (23.7 x 28.5 cm)
A panoramic view taken from the vicinity of the Oriental Bank Corporation, looking west across the Flora Fountain—the celebrated neo-Classical landmark commissioned in 1864 in honour of Sir Bartle Frere—towards the Gothic spires of the University Convocation Hall, Rajabai Tower, and the High Court beyond. The circular basin of the fountain, framed by converging thoroughfares and horse-drawn carriages, forms the visual nucleus of the composition. The image records with remarkable clarity the urban symmetry and civic order that defined the Fort precinct in the late Victorian era. The tonality and architectural precision are characteristic of professional studios such as Bourne & Shepherd or Clifton & Co., both of whom issued similar large-format views in the 1880s.
The Flora Fountain—later forming part of what became Hutatma Chowk—was among Bombay’s most photographed civic monuments, representing the confluence of European sculptural aesthetics and colonial urban planning. Taken from the vantage of the Oriental Bank Corporation (founded 1842), this photograph encapsulates the heart of British Bombay, with its ensemble of High Victorian Gothic buildings embodying the city’s self-styled identity as “Urbs Prima in Indis.”
b) Untitled (Street Scene, Bombay)
Circa 1910
Silver gelatin print mounted on paper
6.7 x 8.3 in (17.2 x 21.2 cm)
A lively street view along a principal thoroughfare of colonial Bombay—likely Hornby Road—lined with two-storey shopfronts and shaded by rain trees. Horse carriages, hand-pulled rickshaws, and pedestrians animate the avenue, the play of light and foliage producing a cinematic effect characteristic of early 20th-century street photography.
This image reflects Bombay’s transition into a modern commercial metropolis during the Edwardian era, when the city’s urban core extended beyond the Fort into new residential and mercantile districts. The wide boulevards, electric tram lines, and cast-iron shop canopies document the city’s cosmopolitan life before motor traffic dominated the streets. Comparable photographs by Raja Deen Dayal & Sons and Hamilton Studios capture similar motifs.
c) Untitled (Bombay — The Yacht Club)
Circa 1880s
Albumen print mounted on paper
8.9 x 11.6 in (22.8 x 29.5 cm)
A classic waterfront composition showing the Royal Bombay Yacht Club from the sea, with moored sailing vessels and European yachts along the Apollo Bunder. The building’s distinctive corner tower and Gothic arched windows are crisply delineated against the backdrop of the harbour. The tonal range and framing suggest an accomplished professional photographer.
Founded in 1846, the Royal Bombay Yacht Club became a prestigious institution symbolising the colonial elite’s maritime leisure. The clubhouse, designed by John Adams, was completed in 1881 and stood adjacent to the Gateway of India site (constructed three decades later). Similar prints appear in the Bombay Harbour Album (Clifton & Co., 1885) and in Bourne & Shepherd’s Views of Bombay, plate 263.
The photograph also documents the city’s evolving shoreline prior to the land reclamations of the early 20th century.
d) Edward Taurines
Untitled (Bombay — The Sailors’ Home)
Circa 1880s
Albumen print mounted on paper
Titled in negative at lower left,
7.4 x 9.3 in (19 x 23.7 cm)
A finely printed architectural study of the Sailors’ Home, later known as the Seamen’s Institution, situated near Apollo Bunder. The Indo-Saracenic façade, with its striped stone banding, polychrome brickwork, and elaborate gables, is captured in crisp morning light. The expansive Maidan foreground enhances the monumentality of the building.
Designed by Frederick William Stevens (architect of Victoria Terminus), the Sailors’ Home was completed in the 1870s to accommodate British seamen arriving in Bombay. The building’s hybrid Gothic style became emblematic of the Bombay Presidency’s late-colonial civic architecture. Related albumen prints appear in the Royal Photographic Society Collection and in the Bombay City Views album by Clifton & Co., c.1885.
Taken together, these vintage photographs form an eloquent record of late-Victorian and Edwardian Bombay’s civic grandeur and cosmopolitan life—its banks, public institutions, maritime clubs, and bustling streets—mirroring the city’s rise as the “Urbs Prima in Indis”. Each image preserves architectural and social details since lost to redevelopment, and collectively they exemplify the visual vocabulary through which colonial Bombay was imagined, circulated, and memorialised in the photographic albums of the British Empire.
(Set of four)
NON-EXPORTABLE