PANORAMIC PHOTOGRAPH OF CAPE TOWN

Albumen prints in four panels and mounted on stiff card with linen hinges, bound into dark green pebble grained cloth-covered boards with gilt titling on the upper cover. The photographs and binding are in fine condition.

Size: each print 238 x 238 mm, folds out to a panorama measuring mounted 1255 x 340 mm.

Bull & Denfield: Secure the Shadow, The Story of Cape Photography, Cape Town 1970, pages 189/90, ‘James Edward Bruton was born in Port Elizabeth on April 6, 1838. His parents were 1820 settlers.  On February 11, 1858, at the age of nineteen, he opened his first photographic rooms opposite the Lyceum in Port Elizabeth….he moved to Cape Town in 1874….His studio in Cape Town was most lavishly furnished and referred to as “one of the attractions of Cape Town”. It is fitting to record that he was the first Cape photographer to depict clouds in photographs.. This was at a display of his work on opening his new studio. In 1880 he established another photographic landmark by being the first professional photographer to use dry-plate negatives, a process which completely superseded all other methods. In the eighteen nineties he left Cape Town for the Isle of Man where at Douglas he continued with his photography until his sight failed him. He died there on August 9, 1918.’