India. Photographs of Indian rulers [Muraqqa Jahan Numa], c.1880

India. [Photographic biographies of Indian rulers], c.1880, 2 parts in 1 volume, approximate pagination [6] 7-96 pp., 3-40 73-6 41-72 [77]-144 147-246 251-4, lithographic Urdu text without hand-coloured oval cartouches, 74 albumen print portrait photographs (9 x 5 cm) mounted to card leaves with Urdu captions (either in manuscript or on mounted lithographic slips), mounts on stubs throughout, 1 similar portrait (uncaptioned but evidently from the same series) laid in, both parts lacking the title-page and apparently the first leaf of text, one card mount (Moinuddin Mohammed Farrukhsiyar) with caption but lacking photograph, part 1 text-leaves and mounts brittle and browned, fore margins chipped and extensively consolidated with tissue-paper, similar repairs to a few leaves extending into text, a few card mounts detached or detaching from stubs (Babur, Humayun, Jahangir/Akbar, the latter both mounted either side of the same sheet), part 2 with water-damage to pp. 133-44 and 3 intervening plates, stabilised with tissue-paper, the repair just touching one corner of 2 photographs (Nawabs of Juagadh and Balasinor), the third (Maharaja of Travancore) repaired with loss, 1 other photograph (Nawab of Palanpur) with extensive loss and attempted repair, card mounts in part 2 otherwise only with variable and generally minor water-staining to fore margins (lower outer corners sometimes discreetly consolidated with tissue), contemporary red morocco binding with broad roll-tool borders gilt, rebacked with red fabric, folio (29.5 x 19 cm) (Qty: 1) NOTES Provenance: From the collection of photo-historian Brij Sharma. An apparently near-complete copy of an extremely rare Indian publication. We trace a fragment containing six photographic portraits and their associated biographies only, catalogued as being part of a larger work titled Muraqqa' Jahan Numa ('World-Mirror Album') by Munshi Bulaqi Das, printed at Delhi's Mayur Press circa 1880. The first part contains 25 albumen prints from miniatures of Mughal rulers and their antecedents, from Timur to Bahadur Shah Zafar. The second part concerns the rulers of the Princely States and associated potentates including the sultans of Muscat and Zanzibar. It contains 50 albumen prints (including the loose, uncaptioned image), of which 39 are from life, and consequently provides original likenesses of numerous princes not otherwise well-represented in the photographic record. The quality of the paper and the adverse climate of the Subcontinent appear to have assured the work's rarity in any condition. A full list list of the figures depicted is available on request.