Photo archive Eugène Père Lafont, Belgian Jesuit.

Eugène Lafont (Mons 1837-1908 Darjeeling), was a Belgian Jesuit priest and missionary in India. There he became a scientist and founder of the first Scientific Society in India. After Lafont arrived in India in 1865 he soon was appointed to teach sience. He installed a laboratory in the college and started with daily meteorological observations which were regularly published in the major newspaper of Calcutta, the "Indo-European Correspondence". Lafont was particularly gifted in popularizing scientific knowledge. He held lectures for the general public which were a huge success. He observed the rare astronomical phenomenon of the passage of planet Venus before the sun which made him internationally known and led to financial help to build and develop laboratories to disseminate scientific knowlegde and improve science courses and research.
In this lot: 16 sm. albumen prints of Turkish types, scenes from the Middle East and India: Tuareg people, Berber people, water pipe smoking women and girls, veiled women, an Egyptian (?) barber, resting Indians, etc.; 6 cabinet cards and larger original photos pasted on cardboard showing Lafont himself: posing with his badges of honour, in front of a tent camp, working with a scientific instrument, 2 photos by Johnston & Hoffmann (the first and largest studio based in Calcutta (now Kolkata)), one by Meade (?); 35 smaller and larger albumen prints pasted on cardboard showing the mission area of Lafont: natives doing laundry, Calcutta High Court, men and women of the labouring classes, Hooghly Bridge, cavalry in Gwalior, the grave of Gustave Mees in Calcutta, the Maharaja of Gwalior with colonel Robertson and Lafont in a carriage, the Delhi amphitheater in 1903, fort Gwalior, the Taj Mahal (gardens, sarcophagus), Henry Martin's pagoda at Serampore, the general post office of Calcutta, the temple in Coconada (now Kakinada), the Sas Bahu temple and the palace of the Maharaja of Gwalior, nice portrait of the Maharaja of Gwalior, an elephant procession during a state entry, etc. Two issues of "The Empress", an illustrated magazine, edited and published by Arthur James Parker, at Calcutta, n. 18 (1 December 1904) and n. 22 (2 May 1908). Both issues figuring an article and photos (resembling photos mentioned above) of Lafont. Program of the "Golden Jubilee" of religious life in the Society of Jesus of Père Lafont, 1854-1904, in Calcutta 12-13 December 1904.