1884
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Servants of His Honor the Gov. of Punjab is a 1884 by Raja Deen Dayal, a Impressionism work, depicting Uniform, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a black-and-white photograph of two Indian servants standing stiffly in front of a patterned curtain, holding trays with teapots and cups. This isn’t just a posed picture—it’s part of an album made for a British official in the 1880s. The servants look formal, but the scene hints at the everyday work behind colonial life. The photo was meant as a souvenir, not art, which makes it feel more like a quiet record than a grand statement. If you want to see more of this kind of work, look up *India*.
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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