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RARE COLLECTION OF COLLOTYPES
BY TAGORES ELDER BROTHER
TWENTY-FIVE COLLOTYPES FROM THE ORIGINAL
DRAWINGS BY JYOTIRINDRA NATH TAGORE
Hammersmith [London]: Made and Printed by Emery
Walker Limited
1914
2-page Introduction by W. Rothenstein + 25 collotype
portraits
Size: 12 x 10 inches
CONDITION: Original paper-covered boards with cloth
spine. The spine strip lacking. Covers a little dusty but a
fine copy of an extremely rare work.
Collotype is a highly sophisticated photographic
process and the prints are far superior to metal-based
photographic prints.
In this lot there are portraits made by Rabindranath
Tagore's elder brother JYOTIRINDRANATH TAGORE
(1849-1925) who was not really so much an artist
as playwright, musician, editor and translator. But
Rabindranath chose to carry a tranche of his portraits
to London on his 1912 visit and these so impressed
his friend William Rothenstein, painter, printer and art
writer, that he declared they were worth publishing.
But, sensing their niche attraction, instead of going to
amainstream publisher he approached Emery Walker,
the English engraver, printer and photographer who
was active in the Arts & Crafts Movement on many
fronts. He had inspired William Morris to set up the
Kelmscott Press and became the inspiration for many
private presses in England at the time. In the middle of
the First World War Emery Walker took on the project
and made and printed the book from his home in
Hammersmith, a London suburb, plunging his heart
into it. Thus, instead of printing the plates as metal-
based photographic prints, in the interest of absolute
fidelity to the originals he fell back on the defunct
photographic process of collotype printing; as one runs
one's fingers over the matt-finish paper one gets the feel
of touching the originals. Considering it was produced
during the war, from the printer's home at his private
press, was about a little-known artist, has no copy in the
British Library and has no auction record, the edition
must have been quite small.
Rs 3,00,000-Rs 3,50,000
$4,620-$5,385