Indigo boilers and fecula table, Allahabad, India, 1877.

Interior of an indigo factory showing the preses, (left), and the fecula table. Fecula is sediment produced after soaking the indigo plants. One of a series of 20 photographs depicting the planting and manufacturing of indigo in India by French photographer Oscar Mallitte (c 1829-1905). Mallitte was part of Dr Mouat's official expedition to the Andaman Islands. He made an invaluable photographic record of the life and customs of the native islanders, a collection which sadly has since been lost. Mallitte taught photography at the School of Industrial Arts in Calcutta, and in 1859 he accompanied the Vice-Roy, Lord Canning, as photographer on a tour of the North-West provinces. A series of his views of indigo planting and manufacturing was sold at Sotheby's in 1980.