SIMLA [now SHIMLA], INDIA - J. G. BRYNING (dates unknown, artist). An album on c.27 leaves of original watercolour studies mainly of Auckland House School, Simla, India, including one captioned, "Young ladies! Please keep to step & turn your toes out", with various landscapes and maritime scenes, and a few other unrelated subjects, including Windsor Castle, contained in a contemporary cloth wallet with silk tie, small oblong 4to (125 x 160mm), mid-19th-century. Simla (as it was previously known) was, from 1864, the summer capital of the British Raj, owing to its temperate climate, and as reflected in its preponderance of colonial architecture. Auckland House School was founded by George Eden (Lord Auckland), the Governor General of India, in 1836, as a place to educate girls on English public school lines. Having gone through various different incarnations, it became, and remains, one of the most prestigious schools in India, earning itself the title "The Cheltenham Ladies College of India." Of J. G. Bryning, the artist of these charming, if somewhat amateurish, watercolours, little is known except that he probably taught art at the school. Many engravings, dating from the middle part of the 19th-century, were made of his Indian views.
