1884
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dr. Morris and party, Jhansi (recto); Mr. MacNull, Jhansi (verso) is a 1884 by Raja Deen Dayal, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
Here’s a man in a suit standing beside two seated British officers in a garden. Behind them, Indian servants hold umbrellas and trays. This isn’t just a portrait—it’s a photograph from an album made for a British official in India. The image shows the divide between colonial rulers and local workers, all posed carefully for the camera. Raja Deen Dayal was one of the first Indian photographers to document British life in India, blending art with record-keeping. To see more of his work, look up Raja Deen Dayal (Indian, 1844–1905).
These photographs are part of an album, now disassembled, of around 105 photographs taken in India between 1885 and summer 1887 that provide glimpses into the lives of the British colonial elite and royal and upper-class Indians. The museum holds another group of 37 pictures from this album (2016.266), which was probably commissioned by a British civil servant visiting or working in India around 1888 as a personal souvenir of his experiences there.
Raja Deen Dayal is regarded now, and was considered during his lifetime, to be India’s most important 19th-century photographer.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Raja Lala Deen Dayal, famously known as Raja Deen Dayal) was an Indian photographer.
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