Far East snaps fetch £350k

AN album of photographs taken in China during the 1900s by an Edinburgh
pioneer has sold at auction for £350,000.

The 1873 book of 80 prints by John Thomson was one of 46 copies made and which documented some of the earliest photos of life in the Far East.

It was revealed yesterday that the rare collection had been sold by auctioneer Sotheby’s in London in November last year for the six-figure sum.

The price paid by the anonymous bidder was £349,240.

The rare item was put up for auction by the Latham family after being passed through several generations.

Oliver Latham, a tea merchant from Dublin, had originally received the album
as a prize for winning a pigeon shooting contest in the
same year as the book’s production.

Thomson, who died in 1921, was one of the first Western photographers to travel to China, documenting the people, landscapes and artefacts of eastern cultures.