Indian photos, pamphlets go under the hammer

Dating back to the period from the 1840s to the 1950s, the collection includes rare images of monuments and street scenes.

Bonham's, the UK-based auction house, will be putting under the hammer a huge collection (427 lots) of Indian early photographs, hand-coloured prints, albums, negatives, pamphlets and maps in London on April 9. Dating back to the period from the 1840s to the 1950s, the collection includes works by a number of early Indian photographers and studios like Bourne & Shepherd, Lala Deen Dayal, John and Colin Murray, and Sorbji Jehangir. There's even a first-edition Solvyns on offer.

"The highlight of the auction is, of course, the Kanwardip Gujral collection," says Matthew Haley, photographs and books specialist at Bonham's, adding "this is unique and of impeccable provenance. Many of his photographs and albums belonged to viceroys."

Gujral (1935-2007) is an interesting figure in the recent history of buying and collecting early photographs. Born in Lyallpur and raised in Agra, he went to study engineering in the UK, but it was in Hamburg that he built a business. Gujral built his collection at major sales "" the Paul F Walter collection at Christie's in 1996, the Ehrenfeld collection at Sotheby's in 2005 and most importantly, Murray Archive sale in 1999. Christie's had sold a part of Gujral's collection in 2001.

The Bonham's collection is unique in that it not only has images of princes and maharajas in full regalia at important state functions, at marriages and shikaar, interacting with the British or their subjects but there are also rare panoramas of historical structures (the Taj Mahal and Jama Masjid dated 1860), albums of street scenes of various Indian cities in the 1870s and 1890s, a set of pictures of India's first hydro-electric station at Gokak Falls (1890s), images of places on the P&O shipping line (1867-1882), and so on.

Besides Gujral, Ronald Buchanan, the Isle of Mann-based collector who specialised in travel works, has also been a major source for Bonham's.

"We've been concentrating on early Indian photographers at Bonham's for about two years now," says Haley. "This auction is, of course, a special push. Besides the general sales once a month, we have another mixed sale of photographs and books coming up in October."

Price estimates for the photographs range between £100 and £15,000, with the entire collection expected to bring in around £300,000.