Lot Essay
Titles include: 'No. 330. Secundermalie près Madura', 'No. 342. Kaloogoomulla près de Tinnevelly', 'No. 476. Dans le Mysore Ruins du temple d'Hallabeed' and 'No. 510. Ruins de Vijianuggur près de Humpee'.
Capt. Lyon (d. 1891), formerly of the 68th Foot, was a commercial photographer in Ootacamund from c. 1865-69. In the late 1860s he produced over 300 photographs of the ancient monuments of Madras at the request of the Madras and Bombay Governments. He resolved the problems of lighting the extremely long corridors in Southern India, some of them as long as seven hundred feet, by creating banks of reflectors. The work that he produced at this time for the Archaeological Survey was exhibited at the Photographic Society of London in 1869 where it was well received. He later marketed these photographs commercially and the French captions suggest that these prints were produced in the early 1870s during his residence in Geneva on his return from India.
Capt. Lyon (d. 1891), formerly of the 68th Foot, was a commercial photographer in Ootacamund from c. 1865-69. In the late 1860s he produced over 300 photographs of the ancient monuments of Madras at the request of the Madras and Bombay Governments. He resolved the problems of lighting the extremely long corridors in Southern India, some of them as long as seven hundred feet, by creating banks of reflectors. The work that he produced at this time for the Archaeological Survey was exhibited at the Photographic Society of London in 1869 where it was well received. He later marketed these photographs commercially and the French captions suggest that these prints were produced in the early 1870s during his residence in Geneva on his return from India.