Beschreibung:

THE AMERICAN & AUSTRALASIAN PHOTO COMPANY – [Henry Beaufoy MERLIN (1830-1873)]
Panorama of Sydney, New South Wales. Taken from St. James' Church. 1871.
A remarkable and rare panorama of Sydney, affording ‘an excellent pictorial expression of the extent and general character of the city’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 1871). Only two other examples are known: The Mitchell Library owns a complete set and the New South Wales State Library has a single photograph from the series. The elegant group of albumen photoprints were taken by the American & Australasian Photo Company, the studio name under which operated celebrated Australian photographer and illusionist Henry Beaufoy Merlin. In their review of the series, the Sydney Morning Herald remarked ‘each takes a wide scope, embracing an extensive section. The tone of the photographs is bold without being sombre, and the outline sharp and clear, even of the remote objects’. Sydney Morning Herald, 28 March 1971; Illustrated Sydney News, December 1871.
9 (of 10) photographs (each 245 x 290mm), mounted on card and joined (lacking one photograph, faint spotting to extreme left-hand photograph, the middle photograph with the top corners clipped, the extreme right-hand photograph fractionally faded, otherwise in excellent fine condition). Contained in the original morocco wallet-style portfolio, the title lettered in gilt to flap and with original tie (extremities lightly rubbed and unevenly faded). Provenance: Somerset Richard Lowry-Corry, 4th Earl Belmore (1835-1913, Governor of New South Wales 1868-1872, no physical evidence of provenance; thence by descent).