[INDIA — TRAVEL AND SPORTING PHOTOGRAPHY] — WILLOUGHBY WALLACE HOOPER | 12 Original Photographs of Big Game Hunting and Wildfowling in India, 1850-1880

Property from the Sporting and Travel Library of Arnold "Jake" Johnson

[INDIA — TRAVEL AND SPORTING PHOTOGRAPHY] — WILLOUGHBY WALLACE HOOPER

12 Original Photographs of Big Game Hunting and Wildfowling in India, 1850-1880

12 albumen and silver photographs (from 7 3/4 x 7 1/4 in.; 197 x 183 mm, to 11 1/8 x 8 1/4 in.; 282 x 223 mm), matted, 5 with captions in brown ink; one or two stray spots. Housed in drop-back black cloth-covered box, gilt maroon leather title labels to cover and spine.  

Willoughby Wallace Hooper joined the 7th Madras Light Cavalry in 1858, rose steadily through the ranks, and in 1884 was made a full colonel. While stationed in India, Hooper was an obsessive photographer—no small feat given the cumbersome nature of Victorian cameras and their accoutrements. Hooper would gain a reputation for photographing people of different ethnic origins, hunting scenes, Anglo-Indian life, and victims of the Madras Famine (1876-78). In the 1860s, he collaborated with George Western, and contributed to 'The People of India' (1868-75). The handsome collection present here offers images of camp scenes, military battalions, and snipe shooting, etc.