SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT HOUSE 19th CENTURY ALBUMEN PHOTO BY G.R. LAMBERT & CO.

Description

ANTIQUE UNMOUNTED ALBUMEN PHOTOGRAPH with caption: "35 - Government House."
The architecturally interesting and historically important Government House commands our attention, so that we almost overlook the person in the lower left corner, who holds a parasol for protection from the sun’s intense rays.
BLINDSTAMP. At lower right corner: "G.R. LAMBERT & Co. Singapore."
SIZE. Approximately 8 1/4 x 10 3/4 inches.
CONDITION. Lots of wrinkles. A couple of creases. Discoloration or foxing along sky portion of left and right edges, and along top edge. Missing tip of lower left corner. Light colored spots and small marks, mostly in sky. Back has discoloration or foxing along left edge and top edge.
APPEARANCE. Especially rich tones. Very good details. Nice composition.
PHOTOGRAPHER INFORMATION. "G.R. Lambert & Co., Photographers, Singapore.
Gustav Richard Lambert (1846-1907) was born in Berlin and established a photographic studio in Singapore on 10 April 1867. At that time a notice signed G.R. Lambert appeared in the Singapore Daily Times to inform the community of Singapore that he has this day opened a photographic Establishment in High Street, No. 1. By the early years of the 20th century G.R. Lambert & Co. had amassed one of the finest collections of landscape views in the East, comprising about 3,000 subjects relating to Siam, Singapore, Borneo, Malaya and China. The firm became official photographers to H.M. the King of Siam and to H.R.H. the Sultan of Johore, maintained branch offices in Sumatra, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok and were the official photographers for major political events in Malaya.
Although much of the early history of the firm is shrouded in mystery, particularly that of G.R. Lambert himself, the firm’s astonishing legacy is the single most important existing pictorial record of Southeast Asia in the late 19th and early 20th century." (source: A Vision of the Past: A History of Early Photography in Singapore and Malaya: the Photographs of G.R. Lambert & Co., 1880-1910, by John Falconer, Times Editions, 1987)