BHUTAN AND SIKKIM WHITE (JOHN CLAUDE)

Album containing 37 large photographs by White taken in 1905, c.1907

Footnotes

John Claude White (1853-1918) is best known as the photographer who accompanied Younghusband on his 1903-4 Tibet Mission, but he also made several expeditions to Bhutan and in 1909 published a memoir, Sikhim and Bhutan: Twenty-one Years on the North-East Frontier.

The present album charts White's 1905 mission to Bhutan to invest Ugyen Wangchuck, the ruler and later King of Bhutan, with the order of Knight Commander of the Indian Empire. Since a caption refers to Ugyen Wangchuck as "King", the album was probably assembled shortly after the coronation of December 1907. The compiler seems to have been a member of White's party: the captions are lengthy, and a note pasted onto the front free endpaper and signed with indistinct initials identifies locations on the facing map which "were visited on recruiting" - presumably for porters and servants (as seen in two of the loose gelatin silver prints).

The album bears the label of the photographic firm of Johnston & Hoffmann, Calcutta, with whom White had had a long association, having previously accompanied Hoffmann to Sikkim in June-July 1891. The company also published White's Tibetan photographs in various formats, beginning in 1905. An album of such platinum prints was sold in these rooms on 5 October 2010, lot 224.

Bhutan images comprise: Hah Valley (2); Gorina Monastery; Paro Jong (2), one with White's camp in the background; the Paro Taktsang Monastery (3); musical band at Paro; irrigation system; Ugyen Wangchuck (Tongsa Penlop) wearing the K.C.I.E.; the former, with his council; again, with his orderlies; interior of his house at Byagha; the outside; Tongsa Zimponw (a funnel-shaped burial chamber at a mountain pass); Tashi-cho-jong, group with dogs in foreground; Ugyen Wangchuck and family; Tongsa women in ancient costume; singing girls and band at Tongsa; orderlies at evening meal; Poonakha jong (2); the durbar at Poonakha when Ugyen Wangchuck was knighted.

Sikkim images comprise: reproduction of a printed map of Sikkim; Teesta River (2); Gantok (3); Jomolhari from Jelep La; wall at Yatung; lake south Nalae La; Yatung (this and the adjacent two images with soiling from pressed flower); Escort Sikkim Boundary Commission; Tanni Chu River; yak herders.