Safed Sang River and Old Bridge
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Safed Sang River and Old Bridge is a 1879 by John Burke, a Impressionism work, depicting Ireland, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a quiet river winding under an old stone bridge, with hills and a few soldiers in the distance. This isn’t just a pretty scene—it’s one of the first photos taken during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The artist, John Burke, traveled with the British army, but cameras back then were too slow for battle shots. Instead, he documented the places where history happened, like this bridge. If you like this kind of early war photography, look up the subject of *Ireland*—Burke’s homeland, which shaped his eye for landscapes.
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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