Naval Cadet Casper Baker’s album of photographs 1865-1873
Quarto, 9 1/2 x 11inches, old paper boards, upper cover with paper label in ink Casper Baker, 62 pages, misnumbered 60 in pencil, interleaved with tissue, many albumen silver prints mounted on card, 6 naval photographs, and over 70 other photographs, the majority measuring over 7 x 9 inches, each photograph labelled in ink, first leaf loose, in excellent condition.
Provenance: Album compiled by Casper Baker, later vice-admiral Casper Joseph Baker (1852 –1918), an officer of the Royal Navy during the First World War. He was recorded as an entrant in January 1866 to HMS Britannia [training ship] in January 1866, being awarded Naval Cadetship in the examination in December 1865. Between 1899-1907 successively Captain of HMS Sappho, Hero, Blake, Astraea, Flora, Edgar, and the battleship Ramilles. Retired 1908, and then Vice-Admiral.
Compiled by Casper Baker when a naval cadet [and later to become a Vice-Admiral and captain of the warship HMS Ramilles] at HMS Britannia in 1865 through to 1872. The album contains six naval photographs including the cadets on Britannia 1865, a fine large image of HMS Arethusa at Sherness 1865, the officiers on board HMS Minotaur 1872 and HMS Royal Alfred 1870. There are over 70 fine albumen silver prints of Algiers, Gibraltar, Malta, Cairo, Lisbon, Madeira, Seville, Smyrna, Trieste, Italy and its monuments including Rome, Venice, Pisa, Pompeii, Naples and Sicily, Greece including Athens and its monuments. Also images of Mahomatans praying, Albanian woman, Egyptian woman. Many of the photographs are unattributed. Some of the works in Egypt can be attributed to Baron Paul des Granges, a French photographer who was active in Greece in the 1860’s and of whom little is known. Others are attributed to the photographer Georgio Sommer.
£1250