McBlain Books

Mostly on South Asia (India, etc.), Egypt, Greece and China. [our title]

[Photo/Postcard Album]

Hardcover. About 150 photos (or photos of photos) and postcards, all firmly pasted down, two to a page on both sides of album leaves. Album leaves rather worn, with chipping along fore-edges. Some page rippling. Photos are black and white as are many of the postcards. Most of the photographic images, while appealing, are a bit faint and much less sharply detailed than one would like. No captions except for the printed captions on some of the postcards. The last 8 album leaves are unused. Undated but probably sometime in the first quarter of the 20th century. Moderate-sized oblong album covered in flexible patterned leather (25 x 18cm.). Cover worn along edges and rubbed. The first 93 images, mostly photos rather than postcards, appear to relate to India or adjacent areas (a few seem Burmese to us, partly because the appearance of some of the temples). The next 7 photos and 11 postcards relate to Egypt or nearby arid settings followed by 12 postcards and 27 photos which relate to Greece. The final four images (all postcards) relate to China. The South Asian images, as loosely defined by us, begins with about 30 images that could be non-Indian followed by scenes of bathing in the Ganges, numerous interior and exterior images of various antiquities (including several of the Taj Mahal), a few elephants and a few other images. Our Egyptian images begin with four photos of an unidentified caravan featuring rather heavily laden camels, followed by postcard images mostly of antiquities (the Sphinx, pyramids, Karnak and Thebes). The Greek images provide a strong dose of antiquities and a few images of traditionally attired Greeks including a black and white photo of a gun-toting young man and a color postcard, captioned in part "Soldat Grec (Efzonaki)." The final four images are three color postcards of Chinese scenes and a black and white image of an indeterminately-located street scene. Good. Item #85554

Price: $375.00