Lot 27
Seven large "draft" photograph albums from Sir Basil Gould's 1936-1937 British Mission to Lhasa. Containing approximately 1515 photographs.
4 June 2025, 16:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£20,000 - £30,000
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Seven large "draft" photograph albums from Sir Basil Gould's 1936-1937 British Mission to Lhasa. Containing approximately 1515 photographs.
Vol I circa 196 images.
Vol II circa 356 images
Vol III circa 227 images
Vol IV circa 341 images
Vol V circa 171 images
Vol VI circa 139 images
Vol VII circa 85 images.
The photographs are mounted on Daphne paper and the albums roughly bound with wooden supports. Many pages annotated, initialled and inscribed. Some images marked for selection in coloured pencil. (7).,
Vol II circa 356 images
Vol III circa 227 images
Vol IV circa 341 images
Vol V circa 171 images
Vol VI circa 139 images
Vol VII circa 85 images.
The photographs are mounted on Daphne paper and the albums roughly bound with wooden supports. Many pages annotated, initialled and inscribed. Some images marked for selection in coloured pencil. (7).,
Footnotes
During Gould's Mission a weekly "Diary of Events" was compiled for onward submission to the British government in India and London. The first entry was submitted from Karponang, Sikkim on 31st July 1936 and the last describes the Mission's departure from Lhasa on 17th February 1937.
The above albums were used as "drafts" from which a selection of photographs could be made to be sent with this "Diary of Events". Frederick Spencer Chapman (Gould's private secretary) records in his memoire that they:
"... kept a general diary accompanied by photographs, which was sent off each week to the Government of India".
Three members of the Mission were authors of this diary: Spencer Chapman, Philip Neame, and Hugh Richardson. The draft photographs were developed and printed by Spencer Chapman from his negatives and those of other members of the team at the British Mission house (the Dekyi Lingka) in Lhasa and then pasted into the Albums made from local Tibetan paper.
In his memoire Spencer Chapman notes that:
"I used to do all my own developing of still-photographs. The Lhasa water was suitable for this if strained through a handkerchief."
The 1936/37 Gould Mission was one of the lengthiest and most successful of the official visits made by the British to Lhasa. Indeed, the photographic record amassed by the activities of the Mission was deemed one of the significant accomplishments of the Mission and the use of photographs as a component of official reportage within the Mission Diary was unprecedented in the history of British representations of Tibet.
Daphne paper, sometimes called Lokta paper is the local Himalayan paper made from the bark of the Daphne bush.
Bibliography
F. Spencer Chapman, "Lhasa the Holy City", pub. Chatto & Windus, London, 1940.
Clare Harris & Tsering Shakya, Seeing Lhasa, British Depictions of the Tibetan Capital 1936-1947, Chicago, 2003, p 37.