Lucknow City of Illusion, Edited by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

Lucknow City of Illusion

Edited by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

Hardcover: 295 pages
Dimensions (inches): 11.1 x 9.8 x 1.3
Publisher: Prestel Publishing (May 2006)

A gorgeous book on 19th century photography, about the most well-photographed and interesting city that became part of British India and the geographic heart of Raj photography. The book features superb essays and spectacular photogems by Felix Beato, John Sache and other photographers of the period.

The photographs are from the Alkazi Collection of Photography, the world's major private collection of early Indian photography.

Lucknow is a testament to the zig-zag, Humpty-Dumpty nature of Western imperlialism. First, European architects helped sprout an incredible multi-cultural city. Hardly was the city at its zenith culturally than European armies came to destroy it. Proper attention is paid to Beato's 1858 panorama of the city just after its fall. It is one of the profoundest such series in early photography, an eerie reminder of the desolation of war and the appalling stillness of victory.

The photographer who really emerges in this collection is John Sache, an early commercial photographer in Lucknow and elsewhere in northern India.

A must-have for any serious aficionado of Raj photography, and anyone who enjoys suptuous and exceptional images.

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