Historical information

This item is a photograph album that would have been owned by a person or family in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. In most cases (but not in this one) family photographs would have been mounted in the pages and kept as part of a family’s history. Albums such as this one, with photographs, would then become family heirlooms and treasured as such. They would have been expensive to buy at the time so were the province of the more affluent. This album, in very good condition, is beautiful, aesthetically-pleasing and redolent with the history of earlier times.

Significance

This album is retained as a beautiful example of the type of photograph album that the more affluent members of society would have owned over a 100 years ago.

Physical description

This is a leather covered photograph album. The cover is brown with ornamental floral scrolls and ornamental gold panels. Some of the gold etching and some of the leather areas have worn away. The spine has ridged gold bands with the gold etching heavily faded. The metal clasp that closes the pages is made of silver (tarnished) and is of a decorative pattern. The sixteen pages are made of heavy stiffened cardboard and have centre cut-outs (to contain photographs). These cut-outs are oval and rectangular (arched at the top) in shape and are outlined in gold. On every second page, the cut-out is decorated with sprigs of flowers delicately painted in colour. The pages are gilt-edged. There are three loose sheets of paper which look to be original backing pieces for photographs. There are no photographs in the album.