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10 Historic Travel Photographs for under £10k

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The Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History sale (13 November | London) brings to auction a remarkable array of vintage photographs from all over the world. Ten highlights give a rare glimpse into history, showing everything from royalty to ordinary people, Indian tribes, impoverished people in Glasgow, Antarctic explorers and spectacular architecture. Click the image above to view the slideshow.

Past Auction
Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History
13 November 2018 | 10:30 AM GMT | London

10 Historic Travel Photographs for under £10k

  • Thomas Annan
    Glasgow City Improvement Trust. Old Closes and Streets.
    Glasgow: T. & R. Annan & Sons, 1900
    Estimate £1,500–2,000
    “Annan's photographs, taken between 1868 and 1871, were designed to record the history of the buildings as well as the dreadful living conditions” (ONDB).
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  • Colonel Sir Henry James
    Plans and photographs of Stonehenge, and of the Turusachan in the Island of Lewis. [Southampton: Ordnance Survey], 1867
    Estimate £1,000–1,500
    The book contains early photographs and plans by Major-General Sir Henry James, the then Director General of the Ordnance Survey. James was an advocate for the budding science of photography. He was one of the first to find out how it could be used to enlarge or reduce maps. During the production of this volume, the technique of transferring photographs to printing plates was invented and used. James dubbed it ‘photozincography’.
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  • Album of 36 photographs of Athens and its antiquities, circa 1860.
    Estimate £4,000–6,000
    This fine album is a diplomatic gift from Dimitrios Kallergis, who fought in the Greek War of Independence, to Bernard Pierre Magnan, Marshal of France.
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  • Randolph Bezzant Holmes
    A collection of 26 portraits and views taken in and around Peshawar and the North-West Frontier Province, 1920s–30s.
    Estimate £1,500–2,000
    A fine group of photographs by Randolph Bezzant Holmes (1888–1973), a professional and military photographer and amateur artist who took over the business established by his father, William D Holmes, in Peshawar. He was an official photographer of the Afghan Wars on the North-West Frontier in Afghanistan, and also spent time in Kashmir, and he published books illustrated with his photographs in 1910 and 1929.
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  • Robert Yarnall Richie
    Photograph portrait of Ibn Saud, circa 1946.
    Estimate £4,000–6,000
    A fine and rare large vintage photograph of King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud (1875–1953). Robert Y Richie (1908–84) worked as a freelance commercial and industrial photographer, in Texas and worldwide. His work is significant for its artistic qualities, and he produced a lot of work for the Arabian American Oil Company. His photographs were published in many leading magazines including Fortune, Life, Scientific American, Time, and National Geographic.
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  • Album of 197 photographs of East Africa, circa 1904–09.
    Estimate £2,000–3,000
    A selection of Interesting ethnographic and big game photographs of East Africa, including Belgian Congo and Uganda.
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  • William Louis Henry Skeen, Colombo Apothecaries Co. Ltd., and others?
    Album of 30 photographs of Ceylon and Singapore, circa 1880s.
    Estimate £2,000–3,000
    A fantastic collection of haunting portraits and interesting views. William Louis Henry Skeen was a very successful commercial photographer, working in Ceylon between 1860 and 1903. He is especially known for photographing natives, tea and coffee cultivation, railway construction and landscapes.
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  • Attributed to Benjamin Simpson
    Album of 79 photographs "Aborigines of India", 1860s.
    Estimate £6,000–9,000
    A rare collection of Indian portraits by Sir Benjamin Simpson (1831–1923), who was a keen amateur photographer and member of the Bengal Photographic Society. He produced a series of 80 photographs, Racial Types of Northern India, which won a gold medal at the London International Exhibition of 1862.
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  • Émile Gsell
    A collection of 5 photographs of Cambodian royalty and beauty, 1860s–70s.
    Estimate £1,000–1,500
    The portraits include: King Norodom of Cambodia in Siamese Military Uniform, Phra Keo Pha, brother of Norodom, the Queen in Western clothing, and the Queen in Cambodian attire with her two daughters, and a Cambodian beauty. King Norodom is considered the first modern Khmer king, with a rule spanning from 1860–1904. He had as many as 47 wives and 61 children.
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  • Herbert George Ponting, Henry Robertson "Birdie" Bowers, and Tryggve Gran
    A group of 24 photographs from Scott’s final expedition, the British Antarctic Expedition (Terra Nova), 1910–13.
    Estimate £5,000–8,000
    Paul Popper bought the rights to the iconic photographs of Scott's expedition to the South Pole, in 1935. Each image has Popper's label on verso confirming that these prints are "made direct from the original negative".
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