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Major Gill and James Fergusson, Stereoscopic Illustrations of Architecture and Natural History in Western India. Photographed by Major Gill and Described by James Fergusson, London: Cundall, Downes, and Company, 1864

xii pages, with all one hundred half-stereo albumen prints mounted onto one hundred thick leaves, most with textual descriptions, inserted at the end (most are numbered on rectos, all have versos blank); publisher's full red cloth, boards and spine ruled and elaborately stamped in blind and lettered in gilt
21.5 x 18.5 x 5 cm

1st edition of this very scarce work.

In 1836, James Fergusson visited the rock-cut caves and temples at Ajunta and Ellora, the results of which were delivered in a paper to the Asiatic Society. In 1845, a published edition of this expedition was offered to the public with lithographs. This generated sufficient interest for the East India Company to appoint Robert Gill to make drawings of the Ajunta murals. While Gill was thus engaged, he also produced nearly 200 stereoscopic views of these caves and other architectural views in India. 74 were published in The Rock Cut Temples of India (John Murray, 1864), and 100 were published in the present lot. Although a few of Gill's works have been in auction within in the last fifty years (only one copy of each), the present work has never appeared in an auction.

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