A replica photo album that documents Bermuda in the late 19th Century is on sale to help fund a local art museum.

The leather bound photo album entitled ?Bermuda 1897? is a replica of one given to an E.A. Smith in 1897. The photos were taken by a George A. Nelson, but mystery surrounds his true identity.

The proceeds from the limited edition photo album will go towards supporting the Masterworks Foundation?s Capital Campaign, which to help build a museum for art inspired by Bermuda.

The album has stood the test of time and has spent the better part of 69 years in the United States. It was taken to Lowell, Massachusetts, by Henry Petty, Gwen Paiva?s grandfather, when he married Anna Ward.

Mr. Petty was a Bermudian artist and collector of antiques who had a fine eye for all things beautiful. He obtained the album at an auction around 1915, just before he moved to the US.

The book was then inherited by his daughter Florence Petty McHale, and then passed onto Mrs. Paiva in a most unusual way.

When Mrs. Paiva?s daughter Holly had to do a school project about Bermuda, her grandfather Edward McHale, gave her the album to use in 1984.

When Holly showed her mother the album, it soon found itself in the family?s safety deposit box where it has been kept ever since.

Fortunately Mrs. Paiva also inherited her mother and grandfather?s eye for art and beauty and wanted to share the historic album with the public.

Carl Paiva, her husband, said the album is pretty much an exact reproduction of the original.

?It was so that everyone who owns the album, has it exactly the way we do,? he said.

?The original photographer George A. Nelson, and the inventory of the views, as he calls it, are in his handwriting and it depicts 34 photos of Bermuda as it was in 1897 or earlier.

?Because we understand from research that some of the photos are from 1897 or older.

?But what?s very nice is that it does depict the Island as it was in much quieter times. I think the beauty is that many of the pictures have people in them and it gives you an idea of how the people dressed.?

Mr. Paiva said the album was a true representation of the time and features all Bermudians.

He said: ?There are also some fabulous pictures of both black and white Bermudians and their lifestyle, which is clearly different from today.?

Mr. Paiva added that the reason for the album?s survival was the fact that it was in a drier climate than Bermuda.

?The photos were so well preserved simply because the album spent most of its life in the United States,? he said.

?My wife?s grandfather took this album back to the US in about 1915 and he owned it up until 1955, and then my wife?s mother had it up until 1984, before it came to Bermuda.

?Soon after it arrived here it soon went into our deposit box and so we didn?t have any mildew or mould on the photos. The photos have been touched up a bit to take some of the spots off and to get a better depiction, but the album is a complete duplicate of the original.?

Mr. Paiva said the reason he wanted to launch the book now was for the survival of and a permanent home for the arts in Bermuda.

?The whole idea of launching it now, a limited series of 1,500 books, is because my wife?s grandfather and mother were Bermudian,? she said.

?And we thought that it would be a great opportunity to help those in the art field, namely the Masterworks Foundation?s Capital Campaign for their vision of having a Bermuda Museum dedicated to Bermuda Art.

?I first talked to Tom Butterfield (Masterworks? founder) in 1994 and I showed him the album, he was interested but I had too much going on.

?But when I became aware of the capital campaign I brought it up and he said, ?This is the time ? this is not a book on Bermuda it is a photo album?. We saw it as an opportunity to raise some funds for the capital campaign.

?We were working with Ralph Richardson Jr. who was product manager and was putting it together for us in San Francisco.

?He was able to create this piece to the standards that we wanted so that people could have it as an heirloom, whether they have it on a coffee table or in a box in a closet.

?Ralph is someone who Bermuda should be proud of, he is a son of the soil and he?s accomplished. If someone is looking for someone to re- or develop their websites, I would recommend they talk to Ralph because he captured our vision.?

The album itself features places of normalcy like Cedar Avenue, in Pembroke, before the cedar blight.

But he said: ?The album itself, if you start to go into each picture you see something different.

?Many of the photos, when you begin to scrutinise them you?ll see children sitting in the trees, like in a banana patch, and I think it captures Bermuda as it was when there wasn?t much to do except enjoy the beauty of the Island.

?At the same time it picks up on the working Bermudians, picking the onions, which is what our survival was all about.?

But the mysterious photographer Mr. Nelson and his recipient E.A. Smith still baffles them.

?We don?t know who Nelson was, but my gut feeling is that he was a British officer here and the second last picture is the only posed picture and it is of an officer,? said Mr. Paiva.

?My instinct is telling me that it would be him, and the reason why I am saying that is because it is also at the end of the book. If you look at the way it has been put together it is quite methodically by parish almost moving out towards the West End.

?It is the only one posed and if I was doing it, that would be my signature. So we do have some people who are involved with Masterworks who are historians and it is part of their mission to find out who Mr. Nelson was and I am looking forward to the feedback, because at the end of the day, we would like to have an idea also of who E.A. Smith was, so that we can have a little history and make it a little more colourful.?

Mr. Paiva hailed Nelson as a great artist of his time, as he was able to capture the Bermuda light.

?The beauty of Nelson was that he was quite an artist of his own time, if you look at the lighting,? he said. ?Bermuda is known for its high key lighting and he captured that some one-hundred and something years ago. That is fantastic.

?Though on the other side, he caught a lot of pictures of Bermudian children and what they were doing and playing at the time. I think it tells us a lot about his nature.

?He obviously saw a lot of beauty in the sentimental side of life, as opposed to just taking pretty pictures. So it is quite fun because you can create a lot of imagination when you look at the photographs.

?One of the people who called me the other day said every time she opens the album she gets excited because she sees more.?

Of Mr. Nelson he also said they are checking with the Archives Department to see if he was a military officer and when he was on the Island.

?There is a document in the Archives which lists all British officers who served in Bermuda and Mrs. (Sandra) Outerbridge is searching this on her own,? he said.

?She has looked up 1895 and he?s not there, so she?ll be looking later because they were here for three year periods. We have asked the Nelson family in Bermuda, because we weren?t sure if he was an English officer or a black Nelson and they said it was unlikely as they came to Bermuda in the 1950s.

?So that has eliminated that and so far we haven?t gotten that information, but it is interesting.?

Mr. Paiva said the whole reproduction process was a bit of a handful because he did not want it to be mass-marketed.

?I didn?t just want a paper book or a mass production thing,? he said. ?I wanted it to be as close as possible to the original. The only difference is that original?s pages are photo paper on linen, but that was really prohibitive to re-create because it would have doubled the price.

?So we created it on the best paper that was affordable so that everyone could have one in their homes. We had the covers hand made and the pictures were done between the Bermuda Press, who scanned the photos and some of the printing was also done in San Francisco where Ralph?s company Project Maven, needed to tweak it.?

Remembering the Island from days gone by, Mr. Paiva now 55, said the photos were taken a good 70 years before he was born.

?I remember Bermuda being less hectic,? he said, ?So you can get a sense of Bermuda.

?My mother just died this year and she was born in 1910 and when she talked about her life as a young Bermudian with not much to do, being poor and basically taking care of the chickens and the pigs ? and in these pictures you see people with the chickens and the goats and that?s what the average family existed with. It is amazing.

?So from the photos I get a feeling, because that would have been her life even though it was 20 years before she was born.

?But it was close enough because everything didn?t start to change until the 1950s and I think it is a treasure that we kind of pine for in some ways, because with every win there is a loss.

?We have lost the quieter times, although I don?t think that any of us wants to be without, we probably wouldn?t mind some of the quieter times.?

@EDITRULE:

The books are available for $250 at C Travel, Triminghams, AS Coopers, True Reflections, the Bermuda Bookstore, Masterworks Gallery at the Botanical Gardens, and the Masterworks Gallery on Bermuda House Lane, in Hamilton.

To reserve your copy now please download and complete the order form available on www.bermuda1897.com or ( The Masterworks Foundation on 295-2379.