I n an earlier blog titled "Rana Court Photographers" I introduced two of the prolific photographers of their age plying their trade in the Indian Subcontinent based in their renowned studios in India. During the years 1868-71 A.D. Samuel Bourne was most active in Nepal. He was a partner with Charles Shepherd in the largest studio of its day Bourne & Shepherd Studios based at Calcutta. Then during the 1930's there was Richard Gordon Matzene based in Simla who visited Nepal several times to take photographs. There are two more famous studios that have done extensive work in Nepal making portraits, photographing royal hunts, temples, monuments and ethnic tribes of the Himalaya. The very renowned studio of Johnston & Hoffmann was opened at 22 Chowringee Lane in Calcutta in 1882 A.D. by Theodore Julius Hoffmann and Peter Arthur Johnston. This was the second largest enterprise in India after Bourne & Shepherd Studios. Although Johnston died in 1891 Hoffman was acti

T he weight of responsibility sat heavily on his shoulders after his elder brother's epochal visit to England was finalized. As the next brother in line and Commander-in-Chief of the Army he, Bam Bahadur, would be the officiating prime minister during his brother's long sojourn. When the politics in Nepal got re-calibrated after the Kot Massacre, Jung Bahadur Rana had secured an edict from the new king Surendra Bikram Shah to rule Nepal in perpetuity with the post of prime minister going to the next brother in agnatic succession.  General Bam Bahadur Rana portrait in French Military uniform fashionable at the time Prime Minister Jung Bahadur was extremely grateful that his younger brothers had given him both moral and physical support on that fateful night at the Kot where all their lives were in peril. The family had rushed to the armoury at the midnight summons of Queen Rajya Luxmi Devi. News came that the battalion under General Abhiman Singh Rana Magar was on its way to the