INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA - PHOTOGRAPHY

Album of views in Indonesia, including images of the temple buildings, sculpture and details at Borobudur, Java by Kassian Céphas, [1890s]; and 3 others, including J.H.M. Robson, People of a Native State, Singapore, 1894 (7)

Footnotes

Unusual photography albums relating to journeys to Java and Singapore in the 1890s, compiled by William Pomfret Burra, Assistant Private Secretary to Sir Charles Mitchell, Governor of the Straits Settlement. The Indonesia album includes a series of eighteen images of the Buddhist temples at Borobudur by Kassian Céphas, recognised as the first indigenous Indonesian photographer. The album of images of Malaysia, record stages from a two week journey undertaken in 1894 by Mitchell and his entourage. This journey was written up by Major McCallum as "A Trip Across the Peninsula with H.E. the Governor" in a series of articles printed in the Singapore Free Press (a photocopy sold with the lot). Includes the travelling party at Tras (with Burra posing topless "as a half tame Sakai chief"), groups with the Imam Prang and son, the mosque at Kuala Lipis, Kampong Budu (4, houses and locals), "Sakais K. Lipis", "Si Raman' stockade - Rebellion 1894", "Chinese Trading Boat - Pahang River", and Johor (9, include portrait of Abu Bakar, Sultan of Johor, the Chinese theatre, the Sultan's army on parade). The other albums relate to Burra's time stationed in South Africa.

Provenance: William Pomfret Burra (1874-1919), initials "W.P.B." on upper cover of Java album, and identified in group photograph of the Malaysian album.