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Lot Essay
The prints include:
a. 'The Minarets of the Ramgurrean Sirdars- Sacred Temple- South View
b. 'Baba Atal's Temple'
c. 'Sacred Temple- North East View'
d. 'Gateway of the Ram Bagh- The Cutcherry Inside'
e. 'Street- Inside Sacred Tak Area'
f. 'Baba Atal's Temple- lake view'
The Italian-born British photographer Felice or Felix Beato (1832-1909) was one of the first professional photographers to venture to India. Beato arrived in India in 1858 intending to document the uprising which had taken place the previous year. He arrived almost too late and instead focused on the aftermath, most notably the destruction of many of the monuments of Lucknow. He later travelled to Amritsar where he was the second known photograph of the Harmandir or 'Golden Temple'. He produced the first known photographic study of the temple complex. He is recorded as having produced a series of 19 images, many of which depict architectural details of the temple complex which are now lost. It appears that Beato did not produce many prints of his Amritsar series as he probably thought they would be less commercial than his images of the destruction wrought in the wake of the 1857 uprising. For a further discussion on Beato in India see Divia Patel, 'Photography and the Romance of the Panjab', in Susan Stronge (ed.), The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, London, 1999, pp. 192-198. For a set of 15 prints from this same series including 5 out of the 6 included in this lot see Golden Temple of Amritsar: Reflections of the Past, Exhibition Catalogue, London, 2011, figs.33-47.
a. 'The Minarets of the Ramgurrean Sirdars- Sacred Temple- South View
b. 'Baba Atal's Temple'
c. 'Sacred Temple- North East View'
d. 'Gateway of the Ram Bagh- The Cutcherry Inside'
e. 'Street- Inside Sacred Tak Area'
f. 'Baba Atal's Temple- lake view'
The Italian-born British photographer Felice or Felix Beato (1832-1909) was one of the first professional photographers to venture to India. Beato arrived in India in 1858 intending to document the uprising which had taken place the previous year. He arrived almost too late and instead focused on the aftermath, most notably the destruction of many of the monuments of Lucknow. He later travelled to Amritsar where he was the second known photograph of the Harmandir or 'Golden Temple'. He produced the first known photographic study of the temple complex. He is recorded as having produced a series of 19 images, many of which depict architectural details of the temple complex which are now lost. It appears that Beato did not produce many prints of his Amritsar series as he probably thought they would be less commercial than his images of the destruction wrought in the wake of the 1857 uprising. For a further discussion on Beato in India see Divia Patel, 'Photography and the Romance of the Panjab', in Susan Stronge (ed.), The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, London, 1999, pp. 192-198. For a set of 15 prints from this same series including 5 out of the 6 included in this lot see Golden Temple of Amritsar: Reflections of the Past, Exhibition Catalogue, London, 2011, figs.33-47.