1866
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Delhi. The Kootub Minar or Tower in the Ruined City of Old Delhi is a 1866 by Samuel Bourne, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a tall, red-stone tower rising from a field of broken walls and scattered stones. The tower leans slightly, and sunlight picks out its carved balconies. This photo was taken in the 1860s, before modern repairs. It shows the Qutub Minar exactly as it stood when the British photographer walked through the ruins. The image is one of the earliest clear records of the site. To see more early photos of India’s monuments, look up Samuel Bourne (British, 1834–1912).
The 50 images in this album, all taken in the 1860s, move from the hill towns of the Himalayas down to cities including Lahore (now in Pakistan), Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Benares (now Varansi), and Calcutta (now Kolkata). Architectural studies of major monuments offer valuable historical records of what sites such as the Taj Mahal and the imperial mosque of the Mughal emperors in Delhi looked like before twentieth-century restorations.
Samuel Bourne, the author of most the images in this album, was a banker in England before he moved to India to become a professional photographer.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Samuel Bourne was a British photographer known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870.
See the richer artist page
