PICTURESQUE ASPECTS OF THE TRANSVAAL (1888)

Gros (Henri Ferdinand)

PICTURESQUE ASPECTS OF THE TRANSVAAL (Pretoria, 1888)

Limited Edition Nineteenth Century Photographic Album:

Oblong folio (41 × 27.2 x 8 cm). Original green gilt decorated buckram boards, professionally restored, with cloth hinges likely original. The volume comprises 50 gilt-edged, heavy-board leaves, each bearing a mounted albumen photograph (100 in total), numbered 491–605 with minor gaps where Gros appears to have omitted certain images. Each photograph measures 24.5 × 19 cm.

Pages show light surface dust and occasional foxing; the photographs themselves remain in outstanding condition. 

All images are titled in the negative, with several pages also bearing Gros’ characteristic blue caption strips pasted beneath the photographs. The album includes early Transvaal town views, rural scenes, and rare ethnographic studies.

The album weighs approximately 8 kg.

Bibliographical Note
Recorded in the South African Bibliography, Vol. 2, p. 451. Three issues are noted; this example corresponds to the first issue, dated 1888, containing 100 photographs. Only two other copies are known to exist in South Africa, making this example the third recorded copy (seller's/researcher's assumption).

It should however be noted that the photographs contained in these volumes are not all sequentially the same. A similar album (same title) auctioned on Antiquarian Auction #97, for example, has photograph numbers starting in the 300s whereas the lowest photograph number in this album is 491.

Provenance
By family record, the album is believed to have been presented by Gros to his friend George Jesse Heys (1852–1939), prominent Pretoria entrepreneur and owner of Melrose House. Following the municipality’s acquisition of Melrose House, the album was transferred to Tudor House on Church Square (Heys’ former offices). It later passed to Heys’ great granddaughter, from whom it has descended (Hardijzer & Cowie personal communication, June 2026).

Henri Ferdinand Gros (Swiss, active in South Africa 1869–c.1890)
Gros worked across Burgersdorp, Bloemfontein, New Rush (Kimberley), and finally Pretoria, where he established the city’s first double-storey photographic studio on the corner of van der Walt and Church Street East. His work documents the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek, the First Anglo Boer War, and the Siege of Pretoria.

Photo-historian Carol Hardijzer notes: “Without the Gros photographs, we would not have had an idea of what Pretoria looked like between 1875 and 1890.” (theheritageportal.co.za)

Gros’ images remain foundational to the visual history of the Transvaal and nineteenth-century South Africa.

Significance
This album represents one of the most important photographic records of the Transvaal in the late nineteenth century. Its completeness, condition, and provenance place it among the finest surviving examples of Gros’ work. A prized item for collectors, institutions, and scholars of South African photographic history.

While its retention within South Africa is preferred, international shipping can be arranged at the buyer’s expense. Collection remains the preferred option.