The Amir Yakub Khan, General Daod Shah, Habeebula Moustafi, Major Cavagnari, Mr. Jenkyns

1879

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Impressionism Realism Late 19th Century Ireland

Dominant colour

The Amir Yakub Khan, General Daod Shah, Habeebula Moustafi, Major Cavagnari, Mr. Jenkyns is a 1879 by John Burke, a Impressionism work, depicting Ireland, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: John Burke
When & what style?: 1879 · Impressionism
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see five men in military uniforms standing stiffly in front of a tent—four British officers and one Afghan leader. This photo is from the Second Anglo-Afghan War, taken by one of the first photographers to work in Afghanistan. The technology back then couldn’t freeze fast action, so most war photos were posed portraits like this one. It’s strange to see enemies side by side, frozen in time before the fighting started. For more photos from this conflict, look up the subject ireland—though Burke worked far from there, his images shaped how Britain saw the war.

The story of this work

Overview

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.