The Mead album

Details

Attributed to MAJOR DAWSON and possibly CAPT. E. D. LYON
The Mead album
Album of 74 albumen prints and 2 two-part albumen-print panoramas. Circa 1860s. Varying in size from approximately 4 x 5½ in. (10 x 14 cm.) to 8½ x 10½ in. (21.5 x 26.5 cm.) or the reverse, the panoramas 7 3/8 x 19¼ in. (18.8 x 48.9 cm.) and 5¼ x 14 in. (13.3 x 35.6 cm.) Some numbered in the negatives or in ink on the prints, 19 with printed title labels dated March 1862, some with manuscript title labels, a few labels with signatures of sitters, various annotations in later hands on first page, brown leather; with a loose cabinet card portrait of Henry R. Mead; a certificate appointing him a lieutenant, dated December 1855; and memoirs of Lieut. Col. Clement John Mead and his brother Col. Henry Robert Mead reprinted from professional journals.
Album size: 12 7/8 x 16¼ in. (32.7 x 41.3 cm.) (5)

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Sale room notice

The illustration for this lot has mistakenly been numbered lot 98 in the catalogue.

Lot Essay

The first page of this album has a portrait of the owner, either Henry Robert Mead or his brother Clement John Mead. The album has varied subjects which include individual and group portraits, street scenes, pagodas, temples, bridges, beachfronts, gardens and construction scenes in Tranquebar, Tanjore (Thanjavur), Madras, Trichinopoly (Tiruchirapalli) and Hyderabad and eighteen photographs of the Nilgiri Hills, some of which may have been taken by Captain Lyon. The panoramas are titled The Northern part of Tranquebar and Hyderabad Residency. Others subjects include the Suez canal and a few English architectural photographs taken in Canterbury, Oxford and Warwick.

Tranquebar was a Danish colony and rarely photographed.

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