Ali Keyl, Pewar Kotal
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Ali Keyl, Pewar Kotal is a 1879 by John Burke, a Impressionism work, depicting Ireland, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a rocky mountain pass with British soldiers in red coats standing guard. Their tents and supply wagons dot the valley below. This photo was taken during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Burke lugged heavy glass-plate cameras up steep trails to document the conflict. He couldn’t shoot battles—the film was too slow—so he focused on the quiet moments before or after fighting. To see more of Burke’s war photographs, look up John Burke (Irish, 1845–1915).
The subject of this album is the Second Anglo-Afghan War, which was fought from 1878 to 1880. John Burke was the first photographer to photograph extensively in Afghanistan and the main photographer covering that conflict. The technology of the day did not permit action shots of battles. As is usual for early conflict photography, the pictures are landscapes of the sites of momentous incidents, views of camps and civil and military infrastructure, and portraits of the soldiers and their leaders.
This album includes some of the earliest photographs of Afghanistan.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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