SEPIA

An evocative collection of photographs, in which, unusually, a Victorian servant has been allowed to make a record of his masters, their country house, and household. The 53 photographs are laid down on 17 leaves of a contemporary stitched 4to album. In fair condition, lightly-aged, and with the brown marbled wraps of the album detached and separated from one another. Three of the photographs are lacking from the album.

Fraser's Magazine launched in London in February 1830, and to begin with its most popular feature was Maginn's 'Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters', with illlustrations by Maclise (collected in book form in 1873). The four portraits, all busts, are somewhat reminiscent of those in that work, but must be earlier if the identification of John Nichol, who died in 1828, is correct. The four are on separate pieces of paper, laid down 2 X 2 (with the four sitters looking inwards towards the centre of the page) on a leaf torn from an album.

ITEM ONE: Photograph of Gladstone, 14 x 10 cm, by Thomas Fall (1833-1900). In very good condition, laid down on the photographer's worn printed card, 16.5 x 11 cm. Showing Gladstone seated outdoors, with his grandson on his knee. NPG x22229 (the entry for which describes it as a 'carbon cabinet card', taken on 14 September 1881). ITEM TWO: Photograph of Gladstone, 14.5 x 10 cm, by Samuel Alexander Walker (1841-1922). Laid down on the photographer's printed card ('Portraits "At Home" A new Application of Photography introduced by Samuel A. Walker'), 16.5 x 11 cm.

Made up of four sepia photographs, each roughly 7 cm square, laid down overlapping each other to make a strip of 7 x 27 cm. Somewhat faded (especially to the right of the image) and with one small stain, and a one cm closed tear to the left. The paper on which the panorama is laid down, which is captioned in a contemporary hand, is somewhat grubby and chipped.