Louis Rousselet

Louis-Théophile Marie Rousselet (1845–1929) was a French traveller, writer, photographer and pioneer of the darkroom. His photographic work now commands high prices. Many of his drawings and photographs were made into engravings by others.

Life

The son of a wealthy Freight forwarder, an only child; he was educated in Paris and Heidelberg.

He made ethnological and archaeological explorations in India and the Himalayas, He travelled to Morocco, and was a Secretary of the Society of Anthropology of Paris. His travels have inspired several books. He made various archaeological expeditions in the southern French department of Pyrénées-Orientales.

Travels in India

He was in India from 1864 to 1868. He spent much time in central India (Alwar, Baroda, Bhopal, Gwalior, Udaipur and several other cities in Rajasthan).

Roussellet wrote: "On 20 June 1863 I embarked at Marseilles on board the "Vectis", an English steamer bound for the East", he stopped off in Malta, Cairo and Aden, before boarding the "Malta" taking the Suez Canal to Bombay and India, "I intended to mainly visit all the northern region, which includes, besides the English Presidency of Bengal, the feudal states of Rajasthan, the Bundelcund, the Goundwana, The Punjab and the Kingdom of Nepal". He arrived at Bombay on 8 July 1863.

While in Bombay he met "Jules Henri Jean Schaumburg" (1839–1886) a Belgian, who was to be his travelling companion from May 1865 – Sept 1868. Schaumburg was later appointed as an artist to The Geological Survey of India in Calcutta.