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History of Photography in India: Hemlata Jain
A peep into the History of Photography in India
The XIXth century, was an age of several new and significant discoveries among which
were photography, cars, airplanes and electricity. Photography was invented during the first
three decades of the 19th century as a direct consequence of advances in chemistry and
topics (the science of the behaviour of light). The word photography comes from two Greek
words that mean “writing with light.”
Photography –Vs. Painting An Art
Photography soon became a popular interest and was perceived as a threat to
miniature paintings which enjoyed popular patronage at that time. Photography as such
provided a realistic image which was more objective than subjective and its novelty
appealed to those who preferred an exact likeness. Its ability to effortlessly render tones,
detail, and perspective effectively put an end to the practice of certain forms of painting,
such as portrait miniatures.
Protagonists of art suggested that photography be used to preserve paintings etc and
not replace them, in the same way as printing and typing/shorthand had helped preserve
literature. This was also the time when the Company school of art was beginning to fade and
the camera was moving into a position of privilege. Moreover, it is widely believed today
that photography created an impetus for painters to forsake straightforward description in
favor of more interpretive or abstract styles, such as impressionism, cubism, and abstract
expressionism. Photography itself has been defined as an essentially modern art because of
its relative newness and its reliance on the machinelike camera.
To demonstrate that imagination, artistic sensitivity, and individual style were
possible with the camera, many photographers began to manipulate the photographic
process more directly, either through chemical and mechanical means or through stagecraft.
As it happened photography did not really replace the traditional art of painting. Instead it
went on to flower into the powerful visual communication medium of cinema and television
besides resulting in an excellent pictorial record of history. In fact photographs were used by
artists as reference and resulted in reducing the number of sittings required by the artist of
the subject. Photography has also been widely used as a tool in support of industrial
progress, colonialism, government propaganda, social reform, and various disciplines in the
social sciences, especially ethnology (the study of human cultures) and criminology (the
study of criminal behavior).
Photography comes to the Indian subcontinent
Photography arrived in India earlier than in other parts of the world mainly due to the
enthusiasm of the Colonial Powers. Despite lack of speedy transport and communications,
equipment for Photography was available in India as early as 1850s. The Bombay
Photographic Society was formed in 1854 with 200 members. Similar bodies were formed in
Madras and Calcutta in 1856. Hardly any daguerreotypes of this period have survived but
paper negatives and calotypes, albumen prints of excellent quality are in possession of
museums and individuals. The East India Company declared Photography to be the most
accurate and economical means of recording the architectural and archeological
monuments for official records, travelers etc.
Among the British army staff assigned to document were Linnaeus Tripe, an
experienced calotypist who recorded large salt prints of temples in South India, Robert Gill of
the Madras regiment who documented the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, Dr. W. H Pigou, who
made an extensive coverage of monuments in Ahmedabad, Bijapur, Mysore and Dharwar,
Dr. Murray of Medical School Agra, and Capt.T Biggs of the Bombay Army. At this time the
Mutiny of 1857 engaged the attention of the British armed forces resulting in a setback to
the photographers. The only record of the Mutiny was by Felix Beato, who came from Crimea
with the British and recorded some vivid war scenes in Lucknow. Samuel Bourne was
another outstanding photographer who covered northern India extensively and had studios
in Bombay and Calcutta. His partner David Shepherd joined him and the firm was known as
Bourne and Shepherd. Another early well known studio was Herzog & Higgins in Mhow.
Besides all these foreigners were a host of Indian photographers who distinguished
themselves and opened flourishing studios throughout India. Surprising as it may seem,
between 1840, to 1900 there were more than 70 studios in Bombay and about 40 in
Calcutta, as well as many located in other cities like Delhi, Hyderabad and Agra. In fact Lala
Raja Deen Dayal had at one time simultaneously studios in Indore, Hyderabad and Bombay.
These studios proved to be so highly competitive that there was not only a flight of custom
into his studios but defection of personnel from Bourne and Shepherd and Johnston &
Hoffman. In fact, The Bombay studio of Dayal was manned by European operators with
names like Wartenburg and Schultz. Some of the early names in the field of Indian
photography were Dr. N. Dajee, Nasserwanjee, Ahmed Ali Khan of Lucknow, Raja Ishwar
Chandra Singh, Shivashankar Narayan, Rajendra Lal Mitra, Prodyot Kumar Tagore,
Ganpatrao S. Kale, S.H. Dagg, C. Iyahsawmy, and above all, the most well known - Raja
Deen Dayal.
In 1893 Dayal’s display of views of India received a special award at the World
Colombian Exposition in Chicago. This was followed by several awards at photographic
exhibitions held in Jeypore, Indore, Delhi. Testimonials, appointments and letters of
appreciation flowed profusely. In 1897 Queen Victoria granted the firm a Royal Warrant.
Another distinguished photographer, Shahpurjee N. Bhedwar of Bombay, received a gold
medal and the world challenge cup for his picture “Day Dream.” In 1891, at a world
photographic contest held in England, where 3,300 pictures were submitted. The same year
he sold eight of his prints for a sum of 28,000 rupees (or about $1,500 in today’s figures).
Later Queen Victoria appointed him as one of her Royal Photographers.
Photographs as Mirror of the British Raj
The Great Indian Mutiny of 1857 attracted photographers like Dr. John Murray, Felix
Beato and the husband-wife team of the Tytlers. The resulting iconography was a
photographic record of history which up to then had consisted of only text and
sketches/paintings of war scenes. This was followed by the European photographers
exploring the bewildering variety of peoples, culture and monuments of the Indian sub
continent in albums for commercial sale and presentation back home.
Development of Photography in the mid XIXth century provided an exciting new
medium for the colonial powers to catalogue their territorial acquisitions and possessions.
Many fine photographers recorded the changing era, documenting the highly complex
people and cultures of the oldest civilizations of the Orient that had endured over centuries.
After the Mutiny of 1857, the British over threw the Mughal emperor and strengthened their
hold over Indian states. With the British came the art and equipment for Photography,
resulting in a frenzy of activity to record the military campaigns, native peoples,
monuments, and momentous events of the era.
During the British Raj the main role of artisans and photographers in India was to
create images of the east which could be taken back home to Britain and presented as an
exotic colony that they had conquered. This led to a glorified romantic representation of
India. Apart from this they also played a role in defining and establishing the power of the
British Raj in India. Most British artists viewed Indians as “natives”. This led to a bias in their
portrayal of India and its people.
The man behind the camera became the interpreter of the scene. However as
photography developed and the differences in composition and perception began to be
visible it became evident that a photographer could create a work of art.
After the Mutiny and the problems faced by the British troops in quelching the same,
the British Government turned to the important issues of proper organization for governance
of India; through administrative reforms, development programmes, communications and
transport that would facilitate a firm control of the territory and project complete authority..
Alongside, the need to establish relations/alliances with the Rulers of Native states.
The holding of the Delhi Durbars in 1877, 1903 and 1911 proclaimed the British monarchs as
Rulers in place of Mughals and all the Native Rulers were expected to join the Assemblage to
pay obeisance at these grand gatherings. Some of the long shots of Delhi Durbar by Samuel
Bourne and Dayal, reveal the grandeur of this event.
In three metros like Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, the camera publicized the
Imperial vision in the architecture of the official buildings in downtown areas which were
constructed in the typical Victorian Gothic, Neo-classical, and Palladian styles of Western
Architecture.
Dayal alone recorded almost 6000 images documenting the geography, the
architecture, the ruins, the people of his beloved India. Invariably he prepared albums, then
and now, the most sought after because they contained the perfect balance between the
exotic and the romantic, the beautiful and the bizarre that makes India gorgeously Indian.
Today, people view photography as a method of expressing emotion or ones vision.
Great value is given to the aesthetic and visual appeal of the photographs rather than just
the content. Like in a painting or any other art form, nowadays the technique such as line,
space, color and composition play equal importance as the subject in a photograph.
This is what helps distinguish a photograph from just being a method of capturing a
moment to being a piece of artwork, a reflection of the subject’s mood, clothing, character
and image. The thought, skill and effort put into taking the photograph also count towards it
being an artistic image as compared to an instantaneous shot of a situation. The presence of
subjectivity and viewer interest helps in making a the photograph more meaningful than just
a record as it takes the viewer beyond just what is seen and gives it a deeper meaning. The
historical 19th century pictures by European photographers presented a vision of India
which matched the perception of the British as an exotic pageant of the East – ancient
monuments, tribal natives, rich Princely rulers and strange traditions.
Somewhat different was the focus of Indian lensmen. The portraits of British settlers
and their families provide a rich legacy of the Victorian era costumes, styles, coiffures,
uniforms, culture and way of life. Their lavish lifestyle with Natives in attendance was a
different experience in a strange environment. The photographs tell us as much about the
man behind the camera as the subject and situation. Events like weddings, parties, hunting
expeditions, were all captured beautifully by eminent Indian photographer Lala Deen Dayal.
The portrait photographs of the Native Chiefs in all their rich, visual splendor adds to the
premise why India was the most coveted jewel in the Crown.
Special features of antique image
The images displayed here are unique memoirs of a bygone era; original
photographs, printed laboriously through special processes on a variety of substrate paper
or glass and later film.
There are four stages in identifying photographs. A general inspection by reflected
light reveals the support materials, image colour, and signs of damage or deterioration. In
silver prints, the latter includes yellowing and fading, usually termed ‘sulphiding’, and the
presence of a silver sheen on the shadow areas, often called ‘mirroring’. A raking light will
highlight surface finish, and can reveal a relief image. A magnifying glass of between 4× and
10× will establish whether there is a grain structure to the image, and 30× will show the
image structure of continuous-tone photographs. Finally, the subject matter and date of
production will suggest certain processes, which were used for specific applications and
within a particular time-frame.
Types of Prints
While there existed a large variety of prints like Carbon, Calotype, Palladium, etc.
only a few of the most prevalent are described here. The earliest direct photographic print
process was salted paper. Salt prints are matt, being embedded in the fibers of the paper.
They show the warm brown colour of a printed-out silver chloride image. They could be gold
toned for a colder, chocolate -brown hue and improved stability: untoned prints may be
yellowed and faded.
Cyanotype used iron salts for a blue image on plain paper. Cyanotypes have a matt
finish and do not show sulphiding and mirroring, distinguishing them from blue-toned silver
bromide prints. The image is created by the action of “printing out” on light sensitive paper.
Albumen paper carries the silver sensitizer in a coating of egg white, which gives the
print surface a satiny shine. Untoned albumen prints have a warm brown colour, but were
often gold toned, producing a more stable image whose hue extended from cold brown to
purple black. Albumen prints reflect paper with a smooth surface that gives rich
photographic detail. This process involved printed out paper and was most common in the
last decade of the 19th century.
Gelatin silver papers comprise developed-out silver chloride; the image is suspended
on the paper’s surface and becomes visible when developed. , Like printing-out collodion
papers, they show a range of image colours from warm brown to purple or grey-black, and a
variety of surface finishes from high gloss to dull matt. Most show a pigmented gelatin
‘baryta’ substrate layer between the paper base and photosensitive coating, which gives
bright, opaque highlights and a uniformly smooth finish visible under magnification.
Deterioration can produce sulphiding and mirroring.
The platinum process used iron and platinum salts to give fine, low-contrast matt
prints in grey-black or cold brown on plain paper.
It is not easy for a layman to identify the nature of a print or establish its value.
However there is no doubt that the value of Photographs, both antique and modern has
risen in tandem with the steep increase in the value of paintings. Collectors are now looking
at Photography as a collectible Art and not a handmaid to Art. Exhibitions of Photographs are
more visible in Art Galleries. While modern photos are reproduced on archival paper with
high quality digital printing to last over 100 years, the originals displayed here have by
virtue of their process lasted over 100 years in pristine tonal values. Value of antique photos
also depends on the reputation of the photographer, his portfolio, period he operated, and
the authenticity and condition of the photograph.
History of photography in India
Political background
India in this feature refers to the Indian subcontinent, which is dominated in area by modern India, but also
includes the nations of Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Partly because of the extent of this
area, but largely because of its geo-political importance in the Victorian era, many photographers came to the
subcontinent during this period, as well as the many indigenous photographers. This is the first of several
features to look at some of them and their work.
Although the Portuguese were the first European nation to begin direct trading with India following the first
successful voyage around the south of Africa in 1498 by Vasco da Gama, they were soon followed by the
Dutch, French and British.
In the mid-eighteenth century, the British East India Company (often known as 'John Company') with its private
army under Robert Clive had decisively beaten both the Dutch and the French and taken power in several
states. Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) to completed the takeover in later battles. By the nineteenth
century, the rule of John Company virtually covered the sub-continent, with the Indian rulers subservient to
company commercial interests while often still nominally in power.
The so-called Indian Mutiny of 1857/8 (increasingly known in India as the First War of Independence) showed
the British government that the Company could no longer be trusted to run such a vast area. The uprising was
accompanied by terrible massacres by both sides and was finally bloodily suppressed by British troops. The
British government now realised it needed to rule India directly, setting up the India Office to do so in 1858, with
Queen Victoria being installed as Empress of India in 1877.
Imperialist photography?
Much photography of India in the early years of the medium was inextricably tied to the colonial regime.
Photographers who went to the region were mainly from Britain and many went as employees of either 'John
Company' or the British government. Some photographed as amateurs, while others were actually employed to
take photographs. The company actively encouraged it employees to photograph, especially to record
archaeological sites, and photography became a key element of the 'Archaeological Survey of India',
established in 1861 (following on from the activities of the 'Asiatic Society' dating from 1784) and still in
existence.
Another aspect of colonialism was religious evangelism, with missionaries coming from Britain to bring
Christianity to this land which already had its own religions deeply embedded in its culture. A number of the
missionaries were keen and sometimes very competent amateur photographers.
Few westerners in India were not a part of the colonial presence, and it was the westerners who formed the
major market for photography in India, as although they were a small minority of the population, they were
largely those with the money to buy photographs. Many bought photographs to paste into albums, so as to
make a visual record of their times in India, which they would take back to the home country at the end of their
tour of duty.
The 'Indian Mutiny' in particular considerably raised public interest about India in Britain, creating an increased
market for photographs here, and was thus a key event in the development of photography in the country - as
well as a milestone in the struggle for independence. People who read stories in the newspapers about Delhi or
Lucknow wanted to see what these places looked like, and wanted to see pictures of the Indians. Because of
its importance in the development of photography in the area, there are links to several sources of information
on the history of India, viewed from varied perspectives, in the box at top right.
Processes
One of the problems inhibiting the spread of photography in the early years were the patents taken out on their
inventions by both Daguerre and Talbot in England and some other countries. These appear also to have had a
restraining effect on photography in India in the 1840s.
There seems to be no clear record of when the first photograph was taken in India. Some sources suggest that
a lithograph was published of Calcutta in 1840 based on a photograph, and that the first commercial
photograph taken in India dates from 1844.
The first native Indian photographer known by name appears to be Nawab Ahmed Ali Khan of Lucknow,
although the exact date at which he started to take pictures seems not to be unclear. Although some sources
state 1845, it may have been after 1850; certainly the earliest picture taken by him in the India Office collection
is dated 1855.
The first portrait studios started to advertise in 1849 and there are several daguerreotypes that possibly date
from around that time, as well as a few salt prints from a similar period. There seems to be little evidence of
earlier photography.
The wet collodion process was published in 1851/2, without any restrictions on its use. Talbot attempted to
claim that his calotype patent also covered the new invention, but he lost the case when he took a
photographer to court. After this defeat he also gave up efforts to enforce the patent on the use of the calotype,
and photography was freely available to anyone who wanted to use it.
Daguerreotypes
Photography really took off in India on a large scale in the 1850s. Portrait studios, using the daguerreotype,
were being advertised by 1849, and their business soon grew. They continued to make daguerreotypes for
some years because the relative simplicity and speed of the process enabled them to produce small pictures in
a few minutes at reasonable prices, but for other uses the new process quickly dominated. Probably the best
known of these daguerreotypists was William Johnson, who had come to Bombay as a civil servant in 1848,
and four years later was running a studio there, in the mid-1850s in partnership with William Henderson.
Johnson was one of the founders of the Bombay Photographic Society. Johnson later worked with the wet plate
process, using a whole plate camera (8½x6½ inches) producing a number of well bound copies of his three
volume collection, 'Photographs of Western India', the three volumes covering 'Costumes and Characters,' and
two of 'Scenery, Public Buildings.' A set of this extremely valuable work that had been presented to the patron
of the Bombay Photographic Society was recently discovered in the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist
University in Texas, USA, where it had lain uncatalogued for many years.
Johnson also published a two volume work of his pictures of people in London in 1863, entitled 'The oriental
races and tribes, residents and visitors of Bombay.' Probably very few copies of any of his works will have been
made, as the pictures at this time had to be produced separately as albumen prints and pasted onto the printed
pages.
Wet Plate or Calotype?
For the amateur photographer and commercial photographers wanting to produce large prints, the choice in the
1850s was between wet plate and calotype. Many amateurs and some professionals preferred the calotype
(some using the waxed paper variation) as the paper could be prepared beforehand and processed at leisure.
Working with wet plate in Indian conditions must often have been uncomfortable, although many photographers
will doubtless have trained their servants to perform much of the hard labour, as well using them to carry the
heavy equipment from place to place. Although we think of India as being hot, Samuel Bourne's problems
when photographing at altitude in the Himalayas were mainly caused by extreme cold temperatures.
Unknown Photographers
Indians were also quick to pick up the new skills, probably largely as European photographers employed many
of them as servants and assistants. As in other countries, there was a demand in India for portraits by all who
could afford them, and studios were soon set up to meet this demand.
Some of the Indian rulers had long been patrons of the arts, and several engaged court photographers to
record themselves, their families and their activities - as shown in the work of Ahmad Ali Khan in the previous
section.
Many Indian writers on the history of photography complain that little is written about the early work of Indian
photographers. Although true, this largely reflects a lack of research rather than an imperialist bias by other
writers about photography.
Why Europeans are more visible
The work of the European photographers is well known largely because their pictures sold to major
organisations - such as the East India Company - and also to the Europeans - soldiers, civil servants and
others - who had come out to India. These collections and many of the albums put together by these expatriate
workers came back to Britain, and many found their way into museums and other public collections.
Many of the major figures became well-known both in India and in Europe at the time, and some of the British
photographers also exhibited and sold their work in Britain. Others settled back in their home country taking
their negatives and prints with them, which were later sold at auction or given to museums. Much of their work
was made available to the British public at the time or later and has remained visible.
Prominent Indians
There were some Indian photographers who also sold work to the institutions and expatriates, such as Ahmad
Ali Khan and, rather later, Lala Deen Dayal. Most would appear not to have done so to any great extent.
Possibly they sold their work more to Indians - and, especially in the case of portraiture, much will have ended
in family albums in Indian homes.
Courses and Studios
That there were Indian photographers is obvious. The early daguerreotype studios established around 1849
employed Indians, as did the commercial photographers founded in the next decade. As early as 1855 a
course in photography was established at the Madras School of Industrial Art, with students being encouraged
to record Indian agricultural tools and practices. C Iyahsawmy, one of the instructors there, accompanied
Linnaeus Tripe, who was appointed 'Photographer for the Government' in Madras in 1856 as his assistant (see
'Images from Tripe' box, top right.)
As this feature in 'Frontline' indicates, Iyahsawmy also took pictures. There are roughly 80 pictures in the East
India Collection from the Madras School of Industrial Arts from the 1860s, and quite possibly these include
work by Iyahsawmy.
Photographic Societies
The Frontline feature also notes that Iyahsawmy's work was shown in annual exhibitions in Madras, probably
those of the photographic society there. Other Indian photographers also showed work at the photographic
societies that had been established in the main cities in India in the mid 1850s, including Calcutta, Bombay and
Madras.
The depth of interest in photography can be seen from an 1857 exhibition by the Photographic Society of
Bengal. John Falconer in an essay on Ethnographical Photography in India 1850-1900 (the link - see box, top
right - is not always available) notes that this included 460 pictures, including 30 by Dr Narain Dajee, a
professional photographer and a council member of the Bombay Photographic Society. Dajee's work was
unusual in including pictures of fakirs, snake charmers, musicians, soldiers and other Indians. Most of the other
work would probably have been landscape, architectural studies and portraits of Europeans.
The photographic societies took themselves very seriously; publishing catalogues of their shows and
magazines regarding their activities. However, at the time there were no successful methods for the mass
reproduction of photographs. Presumably many of the pictures taken by the photographers - particularly the
Indians - are still held in private and public collections in India. Although there have been some publications on
early photography in India, much research still needs to be done into this early work. It is perhaps surprising
given the long history and strength of the independence movement - at least as old as photography in India -
and over 50 years as independent countries that more has not yet been made available.
Print Labels
Many early photographs of this period are by unknown photographers. Mainly these would be portrait
photographers working in small studios; undoubtedly many would have been by Indians, others by British
amateur photographers who were employees of the company or in the army.
Larger studios would have cases for daguerreotypes with a company label or mark, and paper prints would be
labelled, printed, signed or stamped with the photographer's name. Photographs produced by amateurs - then
as now - would be less likely to be marked.
A later feature in this series will look at the work of Lala Deen Dayal and later Indian photographers.
John McCosh, (1805-1885)
One of the first photographers known to have worked in India was John McCosh, an army surgeon with the
East India Company. He was based in Lahore and Ludhiaana just before the second Anglo-Sikh war in 1847,
and produced many photographs using the calotype process, including the only known picture of Duleep Singh
as a Maharaja. The reign of this boy king, the son of Sardar Ranjit Singh, was ended by the war.
The McCosh albums included over a dozen portraits of Sikhs, mainly officers in the Sikh army as well as some
of the non-Sikh officers, who were also encouraged to grow long beards. As well as photographing people,
McCosh also photographed the Sikh palaces and other buildings, as well as landscapes and military scenes.
In McCosh's album (apparently in the National Army Museum in London), the British officers are captioned with
their name and rank and where they were based, and other Europeans are also identified as individuals. When
photographing Indians, he typically only gives a generic caption, such as 'Madras Man', treating them as types.
This approach was systematised by the British administration. The Governor General, after the 1857 Mutiny,
set up a massive project, The People of India' run by the department responsible for state security. Its aim was
to map out the racial types of India as a part of the apparatus of state control. Instructions went to the local
areas to commission photographers to photograph typical people to represent the various castes and tribes of
India.
There seem to be few reproductions of McCosh's pictures online. You can see some rather poor cropped
images as illustrations to the article by John Falconer on 'Ethnographical Photography in India 1850-1900' (see
box, top right.) His pictures are sometimes referred to as 'grainy', which would refer to the effect of paper
texture visible in prints from calotype negatives - there would of course be no grain in the usual photographic
sense of the term.
Frederick Fiebig
Little seems to be known about Frederick Fiebig. He was probably born in Germany and became a lithographer
(and possibly was also a piano teacher) in Calcutta, publishing a number of prints in the 1840s. You can see
some of his panoramas on the web, but there is no evidence that these were made from photographs, although
it seems likely they may be the prints referred to earlier in this feature.
In the late 1840s Fiebig turned to photography using the calotype process, producing prints that were often
hand-coloured. His photographs includes several hundred views of Calcutta in the early 1850s, one of the
earliest detailed studies of a city, a large hand coloured collection of which were bought by the East India
Company in 1856, their first major acquisition of photographs. Among the roughly 500 pictures were views of
Calcutta, Madras, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Mauritius and Cape Town.
Fiebig's straightforward black and white prints are more tasteful and powerful, and you can see some
reproductions of them online, in a auction catalogue (PDF format) which, among much other fine photography,
includes a set of pictures by Fiebig.
Dr John Murray, (1809-98)
Dr John Murray was an officer in the Bengal Medical Service (the medical service of the East India Company's
army), and a prolific amateur photographer. He became one of the masters of the calotype process, making
fine prints from the large paper negatives. He was one of the first to photograph the Taj Mahal, and most of his
best pictures are of architectural subjects.
Murray who was born in Peterhead, near Aberdeen, Scotland the second son of a farmer there. At 15 he went
to Marischal College, Aberdeen, continuing to Edinburgh University where he became a Doctor of Medicine in
1831. He then studied in Paris for around a year before leaving for India to work as an Assistant Surgeon for
the East India Company in 1833. In India he got married and worked as a hospital superintendent and a field
surgeon before becoming the civil surgeon for Agra in 1848, where his major work was in research into cholera,
in which he became a leading expert.
Starting Photography
Murray began to take photographs in 1849, though most of his pictures are from the mid-1850s until 1865,
when was appointed Inspector General of Hospitals and was apparently too busy for photography. He worked
both with the wet plate process and also with the waxed paper variant of the calotype, which was more
convenient when travelling.
Murray built up the first extensive record of the Mughal architecture of Agra Mathura, Sikandra and Fatehpur
Sikri. The most famous of the monuments was of course the Taj Mahal, which he photographed from every
conceivable angle and distance, including some fine 3-part panoramas. He also photographed many other
buildings and ruins, as well as some landscape pictures. Most of his pictures were taken with a large camera,
giving paper negatives around 18x14 inches in size. There are a number of his negatives reproduced on line as
well as the prints. As can be seen from the reproductions, these are superb images.
Publication
When he came to Britain on leave in 1857, he brought a selection of his pictures with him, and they were
published by Joseph Hogarth both as individual prints and a portfolio, receiving a very favourable review in the
Morning Post. They were also exhibited in London and published in 1859 in a book, 'Murray's Picturesque
Views in the North Western Provinces of India', of which only two copies are known to exist.
Almost 600 of his pictures, are now in the India Office collection at the British Library, and some can be seen
on line
Murray came back to Britain in 1871, living in London for some years before moving to Sheringham, Norfolk
where he died in 1898. An extensive collection of his photographs, negatives and papers was sold at auction at
Sothebys, London in 1999.
History of printingFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The history of printing goes back to the duplication of images by means of stamps in very early
times. The use of round seals for rolling an impression into clay tablets goes back to early
Mesopotamian civilization before 3000 BCE, where they are the most common works of art to
survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. In both China and Egypt, the use of small
stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In China, India and Europe, the printing of cloth
certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus. The process is essentially the same - in Europe
special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silk until the seventeenth century.
The development of printing has made it possible for books, newspapers, magazines, and other
reading materials to be produced in great numbers, and it plays an important role in promoting
literacy among the masses.
In India
In Buddhism, great merit is thought to accrue from copying and preserving texts. The fourth-century
master listed the copying of scripture as the first of ten essential religious practices. The importance
of perpetuating texts is set out with special force in the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra which not only
urges the devout to hear, learn, remember and study the text but to obtain a good copy and to
preserve it. This ‘cult of the book’ led to techniques for reproducing texts in great numbers,
especially the short prayers or charms known as dhāraṇī-s. Stamps were carved for printing these
prayers on clay tablets from at least the seventh century, the date of the oldest surviving examples.[5] Especially popular was thePratītyasamutpāda Gāthā, a short verse text summing up Nāgārjuna's
philosophy of causal genesis or dependent origination. Nagarjuna lived in the early centuries of the
current era and the Buddhist Creed, as the Gāthā is frequently called, was printed on clay tablets in
huge numbers from the sixth century. This tradition was transmitted to China and Tibet with
Buddhism. Printing text from woodblocks does not, however, seem to have been developed in India.
Photography in India in the 19th Century
Photography came to India in 1840 and various British photographers traveled to India to record the
historical monuments and the varied landscape of the country. In 1847 William Armstrong Fallon
surveyed in Temples in the Ajanta and Ellora caves and published a book.
Thomas Biggs, Bombay Artillery was appointed architectural photographer in 1855, and made 100
negatives of Bijapur, Aihole, Badami and other sites. In Madras Linnaeus Tripe was appointed
official photographer. Tripe photographed the temple architecture of Srirangam, Tiruchirapalli,
Tanjavur, Madurai and other places. In 1870 Archeological Survey of India appointed Major General
Alexander Cunningham and thousands of negatives and prints were made of various heritage sites.
William Johnson and William Henderson photographed various people and published 2 volumes
called the “Oriental Races and Tribes”. In 1868 Captain Meadowes Taylor published the “People of
India”, 8 volumes that contained 500 original photographs. The first photographic societies of India
were found in 1854 in Bombay and 1857 in Bengal and Madras. The photographic societies greatly
contributed to familiarize the theory and practice of photography. In 1856 Dr. Alexander Hunter of
the Madras School of Industrial Art did useful work.
Some of the rulers like Raja of Chamba, Ramsingh the Maharaja of Jaipur, Maharaja of Benaras and
other princess also took up to photography.
Lala Deen Dayal photographed the scene on a wider scale than any European firms did since he
moved with ease between Indian and English worlds.
Subsequently commercial photographers like Samuel Bourne and Shepherd, Johnston and
Hoffman, Burke, Cache made some of their finest works of the historical sites and also for the
archeological survey. In spite of all the foreign photographers Lala Deen Dayal, by his mastery of the
camera was able to surpass them all.
The History of Printing
The history of printing is also a history of people, culture and trade. Technological changes come as they are needed and as people are ready for them. Cultures rise to their day in the sun and fall into decline, sometimes suffering a long darkness. Printing began as all things begin: a thousand efforts, with no goal in sight, no big picture, combined in a thousand ways to effect a thousand ends. The history of printing could as well be the history of civilization.
A good starting place for this brief history of the Black Art is in China, under Indian influence, where printing finds its first expression in improvements on writing.
The invention of the writing brush made from hair is attributed to General Meng Tien, in the third century BC. This allowed writing to be done on silk rather than with bamboo pens on strips of bamboo. Bamboo is heavy, bulky and awkward, but for all its virtues, silk is expensive. Paper, a cheaper writing material made from macerated mulberry bark, hemp, and old rags was invented by Ts"ai Lun, in 105 AD.
Seals originated in Babylonia, and their impressions were for millennia stamped into wax or clay as a sort of "lock and key" indication of authenticity. This in turn harks back to a simpler process of authentication: in China, a contract was written in duplicate on a piece of bamboo, which was then broken in half, and one end retained by each party. The fitting together of the broken ends provided authentication. There is some evidence that seal technology penetrated China via Alexander the Great"s (356-323 BC) extensive empire, and that Hellenistic influence created an increased demand for private and imperial seals. Seal
impressions stamped in ink on paper arose in China around AD 500, and provided the transition that culminates in printing from carved wooden blocks.
Seal impressions were made using vermilion, much favored by Buddhist monks. A permanent black ink suitable for brush writing was invented by Wei Tan (d. 251 AD). The ink which we now know as Chinese or India ink was made by placing a number of wicks in a vessel full of oil, while over this was placed a funnel-like cover of iron. When this was well coated with soot, the lampblack was brushed off and collected on paper. It was then mixed with a solution of gum or gluten, and, when reduced to the consistency of paste, was put into small molds. The ink was sold in sticks or elongated cubes. To prepare it for writing, it was rubbed in water on a smooth ink stone.
Rubbings of inscriptions carved in stone also originated in China, and provided the technological and philosophical transition necessary to the invention of printing. In 175 AD, a fear that inexact copying would lead to the loss of important cultural writings led Ts"ai Yung (133-192 AD) to write the scholarly revision and corrections leading to a text of the Six Classics. This authorized version was written in his own hand on stones outside the gates of the state academy. The stone was then carved, and exact copies were made in the tens of thousands by the process of placing paper over the inscription and rubbing it with ink. The printing of books by making rubbings from incised stone carvings continued, and parallels the printing of books from wooden blocks carved in relief.
The stencil and pounce, seemingly developed in or about the seventh century, were means of reproduction of which Buddhist monks were especially fond. For the pounce, a design was first drawn with a brush, and then outlined with needle pricks. The pattern was then laid on a new surface, and a small bag filled with colored chalk tapped lightly against the holes, thus transferring the design, which could then be traced and painted accurately. Stencils were used to color blockprinted images, and in Europe were also used to apply glue, the tacky surface then "flocked" with colored lint.
Relief printing originated during the reign of Ming Huang (712-756 AD). Small stamped figures of Buddha mark the transition from the seal impression to the woodcut. The only difference between these Buddha figures and true woodcuts, other than the primitive workmanship, is that the figures are quite small, and hence were evidently made by hand pressure like the impressions from seals. Surviving stamps have handles for this purpose. When the idea occurred to some inventive genius to turn his stamp upside down, rub it with an inked brush, lay the paper over it and rub the back, the way was open for making impressions of any size desired, and for such improvement of technique as made the new invention a force in the advancement of civilization. But first it seems to have brought about only the making of better and larger Buddha figures.
Although Arab culture, which so profoundly influenced a reawakened Europe, knew of Chinese printing, the refusal of its literary culture to profit from the art made Islam on the whole a barrier to the transmission of this knowledge. The logic seems to stem from ultra-conservatism: the Koran was given in handwritten form, therefore the Koran must always be written by hand. This prejudice extended toward all printing: in 1727, when permission was asked for the erection of a printing press at Constaniople, the Ulema under Sultan Ahmed III delivered a verdict that it was against the religion and honor of Islam to allow the printing of the Koran, because the Koran rested upon written tradition, and must in no other way be
handed down. Permission was granted for other printing, though when in 1729 a history of Egypt appeared, such public opposition was aroused that until 1825 no further printing was attempted in the Islamic world. Islamic countries thus began a slow, inevitable slide away from their former technological and philosophical ascendance. The processes of engraving (c. 1460) and lithography (1796) were deemed acceptable for non-religious works, but the Koran itself could properly speaking only be copied by hand in single editions. Thus, though trade and commerce flourished between the Arab world and China, books in Arabic were never printed. Penetration of printing technology was left to the spread of the Mongols from the East and the Crusaders from the West.
Found among the hidden manuscripts of the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, near Tun-huang, was The Diamond Sutra, printed from blocks in 868 by Wang Chieh on behalf of his parents. This, the oldest extant printed book, shows an advanced technique behind which there must have been a long evolution.
The time was right, travellers and traders in plenty went back and forth, but there is no evidence that moveable type or type-casting technology spread from the Orient to the Occident. Movable type did not catch on in the East for the simple reason that as many as 30,000 Chinese ideograms are needed--some much more than others--so that a complete font might run to the hundreds of thousands of discrete elements. It is simpler just to cut a block with all the characters on it for each separate page. Movable type made from clay and later from tin was invented by Pi Sheng (1041-1048), but does not seem to have survived his demise. Movable type made from wood appeared in China, c. 1313, but again left no lasting impression. The type mold--and with it the use of cast metal type--was invented in Korea in 1392 and used extensively, but there is no evidence of technological transfer.
The printing press, movable type, the type mold, and the invention of printing ink for use on metal are all attributed to Johannes Gutenberg (1394? 1406? -1468). The completed process appears in the form of the famous 42-line Bible of 1455 in Mainz, Germany.
Water-based Chinese ink is not suitable for taking impressions from metal. It "crawls," that is, it stands in globules on the metal surface and makes a rough impression. The first typographers of Europe, faced with this problem, solved it by using an ink whose pigment was dissolved in oil. Gutenberg took advantage of the existing technology of oil paints, which came into general use after they were perfected and popularized by the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck (1370? - 1440?). Little modification was needed to turn oil paint into printing ink.
The printing press used by Gutenberg was a clever adaptation of the screw mechanisms available in the wine press, the papermaker"s press and the common linen press. One Konrad Saspach, a wood turner, was commissioned to begin building a press for Gutenberg after the death in December 1438 of Andreas Dritzehen, one of Gutenberg"s early partners. The form of the first printing press, which did not change in essence for nearly four hundred years, must have resulted from a series of experiments by Gutenberg and Saspach, and by printers in the next few decades. (Moran, 21)
The goldsmiths of Florence in the middle of the 15th century were in the habit of ornamenting their works by means of engraving, after which they filled up the hollows produced by the burin with a black enamel made of silver, lead and sulphur, the result being that the design was rendered much more visible by the contrast between the metal and the
enamel. An engraved design filled up in this manner was called a niello. Before this laborious and essentially irreversible process was resorted to, a "smoke-proof" was obtained by filling the lines with lampblack. At a slightly later time it was discovered that a printed proof could be taken on damped paper by filling the engraved lines with ink and wiping the excess off the surface, then pressing the paper against the engraved lines, thus transferring the design to the paper. The metal engravers, however, saw no further than this. The process of engraving as a printing method is attributed to Maso Finiguerra (1426-1464) of Florence, who developed the technique of copperplate line engraving around 1460. The few good copies obtainable before the plate became badly worn limited its utility, and it was not until the time of the German Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), who is regarded as the inventor of etching, that engraving on metal became an established method of printing images in useful quantity. In an etching, the plate is coated with an acid-resistant ground, the ground is partially removed with etching tools, and the exposed areas are then bitten with acid. The etched lines are then printed in the same manner as an engraving.
Learned from the Chinese, woodblock printing flowered in Japan during the Edo period (1635-1867). The ukio-e (transitory world) print celebrated the life of the pleasure quarters of Edo. Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-1694) was the first artist to design and print monochrome single-sheet woodblock prints. Kiomitsu (1735-1785) produced polychrome prints, and the work of his pupil Torii Kiohiro (fl. 1737-1776) continued the experimentation. In 1741, a color printing process was invented, and in 1745 the publisher Kichiemon Kamimura introduced the kento, or registration mark, to woodblock printing.
Lithography (stone writing), based on the simple principle that oil and water won"t mix, was invented by the Bavarian, Aloys Senefelder, in 1796. Its first application was in the printing of music, theretofore done at great labor and expense by copperplate engraving. From the freedom of expression inherent in the medium, the new process stimulated the wildest variety of typographic fancies. Chromolithography, the printing of multiple colors in tight register, was developed and named by M. Godefroi Engelman of MŸlhausen in 1837. Jules Cheret, called the father of the poster, improved upon this process and reduced the number of colors--usually to three--by printing with spatter tints. The combination of Cheret"s formal training as a lithographic printer and the influence of Japanese woodblock prints of the ukio-e combined in 1866 to revolutionize the manner in which commercial images were presented to the public.
Photography (light writing) originates with the camera obscura (dark box), the principles of which seem to have been well understood by Euclid in his Optics (300 BC) and in Aristotle"s (384-322 BC) Problems. Few allusions to the phenomena described in these books occur in later classical writers, and the first scientific investigation occurs in the great optical treatise of the Arabian philosopher Alhazen (d. Cairo 1038) Various observations from 1782 through 1802 on the photoreactive properties of silver chloride, silver nitrate and ammonia led the Englishman, Thomas Wedgewood, (1771-1805) to produce an actual photograph, which, however, he could not preserve. The first to create a photograph that was subsequently unaffected by light was the Frenchman, Nicéphore de Niepce, (1765-1833) in 1827. Niepce had from 1811 devoted himself to the rising art of lithography, and in 1813 the idea of obtaining sun pictures occurred to him in this connection. In 1826 he learned that Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1789-1851) was working along similar lines, and formed with him a partnership. After Niepce"s death, Daguerre improved upon the process, lending his name to the Daguerrotype. The photographic print was created by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-
1877), who in January of 1839 described the first of his inventions and discoveries in a paper to the Royal Society.
Process (as half-tone process, four-color process) is a general term technically employed for the photo-mechanical process by which illustrations are reproduced in printing. The outcome of a discovery by Mungo Ponton, that a preparation of albumen or other colloidal substance and bichromate of potash could be hardened and rendered insoluble and nonabsorbent in water by exposure to light, and that as a photographic negative permitted the passage through it of light in varying degrees of intensity, so a film of the preparation placed under a negative was liable to be hardened and rendered insoluble in degrees varying with the intensity of the light affecting it. This discovery governs the production of process blocks or plates of all kinds. (Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 11th edition, article "Process")
The invention of line process stimulated the invention of the half-tone process, in which an image is broken up into myriad tiny dots by the passage of light through a half tone screen, and thence to a negative from which a letterpress cut or lithographic plate can be made, and the image then printed at the same time as the text. The techniques necessary to this matured between 1852 and 1886, mostly in the development of suitable glass screens.
In 1861, James Clerk Maxwell (Scottish, 1831-1879) suggested that objects could be reproduced in their natural colors by superimposing the three primary colors. Various experiments in separating images for printing by means of colored filters resulted in the first three-color blocks for letterpress printing, which were developed by F. E. Ives, of Philadelphia, in 1881.
Three major 19th century planographic (flat surfaced) printing processes, all dependent on photography and utilizing the nature of colloids, were for a time important. They are Woodburytype (Walter Woodbury, English, 1834 - 1885); Stenotype and Collotype. Woodbury type and Stenotype utilized delicate photographic molds, which were inked and impressed on paper so as to reproduce varying degrees of light and shadow reflecting the depth of the cast.
Collotype or photogelatin printing was invented in 1870 by Joseph Albert of Munich. Collotype produced admirable color images without the use of screens (screenless printing is called continuous tone, somewhat like a photograph), and was for a time used in the production of color postcards, point-of-purchase displays and high-quality reproductions of fine art. Collotype was a viable method of printing as late as 1990.
The heliotype (sun print) process employed film and rendered a small number of photographic-quality images before wearing out.
The monotype (single print) process, whereby an original painting on glass, plastic or metal is transferred to a piece of paper using a printing press, is still much employed as a fine art medium.
The rubber blanket, a final step in the evolution of lithography, was introduced in Chicago in 1906. This allowed a significant reduction in the pressure of printing from a zinc or aluminum lithographic plate, as the plate touched the rubber blanket with only enough pressure to transfer the image, and from thence the blanket transferred the now reversed
image to the paper, again, with only a "kiss" impression. These three inventions, over the period of a century, contributed their names to photo-offset-lithography.
In 1868, an American patent was taken out by C. L. Sholes and C. Glidden for a typewriter which, after effecting various improvements, they licensed manufacture to Remington and Sons, gunmakers, of Ilion, New York in 1875. The original machine had capital letters only, but in 1878 a machine was introduced which could produce both upper and lower case. The legacy of the typewriter--and one that will be with us for the foreseeable future--is the peculiar arrangement of the keyboard, which was designed originally to prevent frequently used keys from tangling with one another. Once learned, there is no reason to unlearn, though there is no longer any mechanical obstacle to any arrangement of keys whatever. Rational or irrational, the QWERTY keyboard is here to stay.
Among James Watt"s (Scottish, 1736-1819) contributions was the letter copying press, for copying manuscript by using a glutinous ink and pressing the written page against a moistened sheet of thin paper. Patented in 1780, this led to the invention and development of the hectographic or gelatin duplicator.
In 1856, British chemist William Henry Perkins (1838-1907) discovered the first synthetic dye, aniline purple. This pointed the way to a wide range of new inks, including "copying ink" used in the first practical method of reproducing business documents. An original written with copying ink was placed against a moistened sheet of tissue, the two were pressed together in a massive iron press, and a copy would appear on the tissue. Since the copy was backwards, the tissue had to be held up to the light to be read. The copy press became a fixture in every Victorian office. Today, they are sold in antique shops as "book presses," their true function long forgotten.
The hektograph (hundred writer) was invented in the 1870s, and used a stiff gelatin pad coupled with special ink made with aniline dye. A document written with the ink was pressed to the pad. The gelatin absorbed the ink after a few minutes, and the original was removed. Blank sheets were then pressed against the pad, and the gelatin released a little of the ink each time, producing a positive copy. The hektograph was good for about 50 impressions. Twentieth-century spirit duplicators (such as "Ditto") were a later outgrowth of the hektograph and much easier to use.
The spirit duplicator was invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld, founder of the Ormig Company in Germany. The spirit duplicator master consisted of a smooth paper master sheet and a paper sheet, coated with a waxy compound similar to that used in the hektograph, acting backwards so that the wax compound was transferred to the back side of the master sheet itself. The master could be typed or written on, and when finished the waxy paper original was discarded. The master was wrapped around a drum in the spirit duplicator machine. As the drum turned, the master was coated with a thin layer of highly volatile duplicating fluid via a wick soaked in the fluid. The fluid acted to slightly dissolve or soften the dye. As paper (preferably calendered or coated) pressed against the drum and master copy, some of the image was transferred to make the final copy. A spirit duplicator master was capable of making up to 500 copies before the print became too faint to recognize.
The mimeograph (copy writer) was invented in 1887 by the American, Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). It is a duplicating process by which a waxed stencil is typed or written upon,
thus opening avenues for ink to penetrate. The stencil is then fitted around an inked drum, which when rotated transfers the image to paper. Inexpensive and highly accessible, the mimeograph was a staple of propagandists through the mid-1960s. After purchasing the rights to Edison"s process of making stencils, in 1887 the A. B. Dick company began selling copying equipment under the trade name "Edison"s Mimeograph." The device made copies of hand-drawn stencils one at a time on a flat bed duplicator. By the time Dick began selling the device, the Gestetner company in England was already selling a similar machine called the cyclostyle, but mimeograph became the generic term.
The blueprint process, also called cyanotype, is still in use, though its day as a commercial process is passing. The Cyanotype was developed in the 1840"s, and is part of a group of processes that include the palladium print, the platinotype and the kallitype. The common element is that these are all iron salt processes. Iron-salt processes basically work like this: All ferric(iron) salts, when combined with organic substances, become sensitive to light. A commonly used mixture is ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. Exposure to actinic light breaks down the iron compound by oxidation, thereby releasing carbon in the form of carbonic acid. The exposed print is then immersed in water, causing a reaction between the new compound (peroxide iron salt) and the potassium ferricyanide. Thus formed is a deep-blue compound (ferroprussiate).
The Diazo proscess (also called Diazotype, Ozalid or Blueline), was a photographic process developed in the 1890"s. It required a translucint original which was contact printed onto a sheet of stock sensitized with a diazonium compound, and developed by exposure to anhydrous ammonia vapors. One of the least expensive means of reproduction, it was nonetheless limited in use because of its number of fixed colors and rapid fading. The proscess was used primarily for proofs and trial prints and was employed thrugh the 1980"s.
Late 18th century Japanese stencils for fabric printing have the delicate isolated parts tied into the general pattern with silk thread, but there was no fabric backing to hold the whole together. The stencil image was printed using a large soft brush, which did not damage the delicate paper pattern.
Stencil printing became commercially viable in the West only after considerable improvements were made to the equipment. The rubber blade of a squeegee was one such advancement. The idea of using silk fabric as a screen or ground to hold a tieless stencil is generally credited to Samuel Simon of Manchester, who was granted a silk screen process patent in England in 1907.
A multicolor method was developed by John Pilsworth of San Francisco in 1914. Anthony Velonis, a WPA artist, coined the term serigraph (silk writing) to distinguish the otherwise identical fine art application from the commercial.
These foundation stones of electronic printing survive in otherwise meaningless terminology (leading, upper and lower case, font, &c.) and in the legacy conferred by those who were trained in the older methods. But, just as the child is the father of the man, so is the antique technological process the father of the new.
http://diamondsutra.inkol.com/pages/01.html
http://www.britannica.com/technology/photography#toc252840
