Captain H.S. Rawhinson (recto); Mr. Robert Holtz and Family (verso)
1884
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1884
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see two sides of one photograph: on the front, a British army captain in uniform; on the back, a British man with his wife and children in a garden. This is one of the earliest photographs taken by an Indian photographer for British clients. Dayal ran a studio in Hyderabad, making portraits that looked like oil paintings—soft focus, careful poses. The album was meant to be a souvenir, so the scenes feel staged, almost like theater. To see more of India through colonial eyes, look up The Cleveland Museum of Art.
