Lot 258v
258 • (INDIA & CEYLON) Shivshanker Narayen (active 1860s–90s) Album with 80 accomplished photographs depicting large-scale civic engineering projects in India, including multiple protomodernist views of bridges, and 6 remarkable two- and three-part panoramas by Narayen. The artistically composed images feature elegant views of enormous public structures, which are shown with and without the scale of a human figure. Includes: a train depot in Bombay, bridges in Nerhudda, multiple views of the North Purna river bridge, variant views of the low level bridge over Mahi River, the new Nerbudda Bridge, laborers working along railroad tracks near Pali, the Kakra Khadi Diversion, hundreds of turbanned workers laying tracks in the Culvert in Keem, and more. With views of the Mechanics Institute, a portait of a Ceylonese Chief, scenes of Kandy, and indigenous peoples with roaming elephants in a tropical setting. Albumen prints, the portraits measuring 7x5½ inches (17.8x28.6 cm.), the views 8¾x11¼ to 10½x25¾ inches (22.2x28.6 to 26.x65.4 cm.), mounted recto/verso, most with captions and dates, in pencil, on mount recto, and 2 with Narayen's hand stamp on print verso. Oblong folio, morocco, worn and scuffed, backstrip split. 1883-84
[6,000/9,000]