Album photographique - Pays des Kandjoutes, Gilgit et Astor

Photograph album – Kandjoutes, Gilgit and Astor
1893 | 26 x 19 cm | one album | contemporary shagreen
Album bringing together a total of 63 contemporary albumen print photographs (15.5 x 10.5 cm), laminated on thick card and mounted on guards. All of the shots are captioned by hand in the lower margin. These photographs were taken in 1893 during an expedition to the princely State of Kanjut (today the Hunza Valley), Gilgit and Astore, that is the extreme north-east of the current Pakistan. There are 25 landscape shots (Hindu Kush range, Misgar, several dizzyingly high glaciers, Kanjut valley, Mount Rakaposhi, Passu, Nilt, Chalt, Bardoutja valley, Shiltar valley, Dashkite valley, etc.), 19 caravan treks, 13 local characters (the King of Yassin, his family and his entourage) and 6 tombs, forts or monuments.
Contemporary binding in half green shagreen, spine in four compartments decorated with blind tooled fillets and bands, gilt title in the second band, paper boards with several blind tooled frames, the first stamped in the centre with a gilt title. Some rubbing, slightly worn corners.
This album was put together by Viscount Edmond de Poncins, naturalist and adventurer descendant of Montaigne, during his trip to Pakistan.
This important expedition, which began in March 1893 and was facilitated by Russian officers, earned him the Société de Géographie’s silver medal. A session report from 1 February 1895 from the afore mentioned society pays tribute to this extraordinary adventurer: «For weeks, living at an altitude similar to that of the summit of Mont-Blanc, he explored the most remote valleys of these mountains whose peaks stand at 6000 and 7000 metres. [...] he continued his journey through valleys that perhaps no man, and certainly no French man, had yet visited.» This report testifies to the accuracy of the photographs presented in the album: «[He] arrived in the State of Kanjut. There, the route’s difficulties forced him to abandon his caravan and continue alone, on foot, sleeping under the stars, carrying his food, crossing forded rivers or using bridges made from creeping plants, until the first English station, after seven days of walking. The natives, a wild and pillaging breed, let him pass and he was able to explore one of the first valleys, remote and almost unknown.»
Three other albums, containing 196 photographs (our first album starts at shot 197), were sold at auction when the Viscount’s collection was put up for sale by his heirs in 2003.
Several of the shots in this album were used to illustrate the book that Edmond de Poncins dedicated to his expedition, Chasses et explorations dans la région des Pamirs (1897).
Rare and beautiful album made by one of the first explorers of the region.