Elliott & Fry [pencil signature lower right.]
[London, 1890.]
Albumen print of a painting, to original card mount bearing contemporary annotation dated "6th June 1890". 250 x 200mm, 9¾ x 8". Lower left corner of mount missing, upper right corner tip creased, lower right chipped. Foxing.
Fine bust portrait in oval of Hafiz Abdul Karim (c.1863 - 1909), Secretary and 'Munshi' to Queen Victoria (as Empress of India); in striped turban and robe. Karim, a Muslim, was born near Jhansi in British India, the son of a hospital assistant. In 1887, Victoria's Golden Jubilee year, Karim was one of two Indians selected to become servants to the Queen. Victoria gave him the title of "Munshi", an Urdu word often translated as "clerk" or "teacher", appointed him her Indian Secretary, showered him with honours, and obtained a land grant for him in India. The firm of Elliott & Fry (active 1863 - 1962) was founded in 1863 by Joseph John Elliott (1835 - 1903) and Clarence Edmund Fry (1840 - 1897), who opened their first premises at 55 Baker Street where they stayed at until 1886. The firm employed a variety of operators who took the photographs, including Francis Henry Hart and Alfred James Philpott in the Edwardian era, Herbert Lambert and Walter Benington in the 1920s and 1930s and subsequently William Flowers. In the early 1940s the studio was bombed and most of the early negatives were destroyed. Shortly after the firm's Centenary in 1963 it was taken over by and amalgamated with Bassano & Vandyk. The National Portrait Gallery owns all the surviving negatives.
See NPG x128799.
[Ref: 21460]  £240.00