Johnson & Hoffmann, Photographers, early 20th century

The All Indian Victoria Memorial at Calcutta: Vincent Jerome Esch's personal album of photographs of the construction and finished monument of the Victoria Memorial, also containing further loose photographs of buildings designed by Esch in Calcutta and Hyderabad, and a signed portrait of His Highness the Maharao of Kutch

Details

Johnson & Hoffmann, Photographers, early 20th century
The All Indian Victoria Memorial at Calcutta: Vincent Jerome Esch's personal album of photographs of the construction and finished monument of the Victoria Memorial, also containing further loose photographs of buildings designed by Esch in Calcutta and Hyderabad, and a signed portrait of His Highness the Maharao of Kutch
41 photographs (some loose) within a cloth bound presentation album
the album 11 x 15½in. (28 x 39.5cm.)
with a British Empire Exhibition 1924 Diploma, issued to V. Esch Esq C.V.O. F.R.I.B.A., in contributing to the representation of the Arts, Science, and Industry of the British Empire; and a small booklet of photographs entitled The All India Queen Victoria Memorial

Provenance

Vincent Jerome Esch, and thence by descent to the present owner.

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Lot Essay

"In 1898, at the age of twenty-two, [Esch] sailed to India to take up an appointment on the construction of the Bengal-Nagpur railway, and in the course of the next twenty-five years enjoyed a thriving career as an architect based in Calcutta. On the boat out he met and impressed the new viceroy, Lord Curzon, an encounter which gave him an entre into Calcutta society ... Subsequently, Esch was engaged by Curzon for the design of some minor government works, and in 1910 he was appointed superintending architect for the construction of the Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta..." (ODNB)

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