SINGAPORE - LAMBERT, Gustave Richard (photo.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Fifty-eight large albumen photographs. A portfolio chronicling the blend of the old and the new in late 19th-century Singapore. The dominant photographic force in the region for four decades, G. R. Lambert & Co. are considered the "creators of the lasting image of nineteenth-century Singapore" (Bautze).Gustave Lambert (1846-1907) opened his studio at 1 High Street, Singapore, in 1867, and became the market leader after the closure of Sachtler & Co. in 1874. Business success allowed him to move into new premises on Orchard Road in 1877. In 1890, Lambert sold his name and plates to Georg Koch, a former assistant; by this point in time, he had taken over 3,000 photographs of Singapore, Borneo, Malaya, Siam, and China, including as the official photographer to the King of Siam and the Sultan of Johor. In the 1880s and 1890s, Lambert & Co. expanded its catalogue and added new studios in Delhi, Sumatra, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok, and it dominated until the First World War. "A typical print produced by Lambert possessed the picturesque qualities needed to make it saleable in the 19th century. These meant producing sweeping panoramic landscape and architectural views of the burgeoning city" ("Establishment"). Of the 58 photographs here, all but 2 are landscape and 51 are captioned or numbered in the negative - a feature introduced after 1890.Views of Malay villages, including one from St James Square, contrast with the modernity of the colonial settlement, epitomized in the neo-class

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