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South East Asian Art and Antiques, & Antiquarian, Rare and Collectable books
South East Asian Art and Antiques, & Antiquarian, Rare and Collectable books
Edwardian Photo Album with 41 unusual Panoramic Photographs, Britain, London, Scotland

Edwardian Photo Album with 41 unusual Panoramic Photographs, Britain, London, Scotland

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SKU LAN8350

Edwardian Photo Album with 41 unusual Panoramic Photographs.

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This the first time we have come across a photographic album like this - every image is in panoramic format, although they are not composite images, but taken using a special panorama camera.

Provenance; from the library of the late William St Clair (1937 - 2021), British historian, academic and author. No signature - we think the album probably has no personal family relationship to William St Clair as there is a pencilled price written to one page, so it is likely he just purchased the album for his library. 

The album is undated, but believed to be Edwardian (c. 1901-1910) - based on the clothing of those in the photographs.

The images are printed on paper approximately 63mm high x 190mm wide (c. 2.5 inches x 7.5 inches), and are housed in an album with window mounts (2 per page). The images themselves are approximately 57mm high x 178mm wide - this would suggest that they were taken on a Kodak Panoram No. 1 camera, which was a roll-film swing-lens panoramic camera made in Rochester, New York, USA, by Eastman Kodak between 1899 and 1928. This camera captured a field of view of 120 degrees.

The album itself is 216mm high x 249mm wide x 25mm deep. It contains 12 leaves in total with a capacity of 48 photographs, 41 of which are occupied. The images are contact printed.

The majority of the prints are on a matt paper stock with 3 of the images having a glossy surface and more sepia in colour.

Condition of the photographs is generally very good. Some small faults, but the images have excellent definition in the main.

The subject matter appears to be based within Great Britain and features a mix of images including coastal scenes, landscapes, boats (sail and steam powered), town and village scenes, river scenes, central London. Of particular interest are the images featuring people, some of which look like they would have required careful orchestration.

We don't know the specific locations of the images (except for the obvious London ones), but the west coast of Scotland would seem likely for quite a few, due to the paddle steamers, coastal appearance, and the shape of the hills.

Weight approximately 877g (unpacked).