The collection of Kanwardip Gujral - photographic images from the 1850s to the 1940s, covering India and the adjacent countries - was sold in London by Bonhams on 9 April for record prices. The sale made £512,000 with many items going to three and four times their estimate.

Top item in the sale was lot 14, a series of 102 prints of Kashmir in northern India in the 1860’s and 70’s owned by Lord Lansdowne, Viceroy of India from 1888 to 1894.. It had been estimated to sell for £10,000 to £20,000 but at the Bonhams sale it made £72,000. The photographs were by John Burke, William Baker and James Craddock.

The Collection was that of the late Kanwardip Gujral, a Hamburg-based businessman who was born in Lahore but brought up in Agra after 1947. His first purchase of Indian photographs was in 1976, but his collecting began in earnest in 1990 when he bought a group of nineteenth century albums while on holiday in Italy. The albums included a number of photographs of India, and formed the basis of his Collection.

Posted: 04|15|08 at 9:17 am. Filed under: UK News.