KRAKATOA.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Original photograph of the 1883 eruption. An albumen print of the eruption of Krakatoa, among the first photographed natural disasters. We have traced only two other examples of photographs of the eruption, neither the same as this one.Krakatoa started to erupt in late May 1883 when a 3,000-foot cavity formed on Rakata Island. The first of four major eruptions occurred at 5:30 am on 27 August, followed by the other three at 6:44 am, 10:02 am, and 10:44 am. The third has been reported as the loudest sound in history, exploding with a force of 200 megatons of TNT. The eruption destroyed over 70 per cent of the island and lowered the global temperature by at least one degree. There were a number of ships in the vicinity of the eruption, most notably the Gouverneur Generaal Loudon. She was sent to the island to conduct tourist excursions while the full severity of the eruptions was not yet known. As such there were members of the public in the position to photograph this unique occasion, one of them a Mr Hamburg, who took a photograph of Krakatoa's early eruptions on 27 May. This was immortalized as a lithograph in the Royal Society's report, The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena (1888). It was also likely the basis for a lithograph featured in The Graphic on 11 August 1883 (p. 13). A second photograph, undated and taken at an unknown location, can be found in the collection of Leiden University Library. This example is different to both those photographs and was take

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