1866
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Delhi. Tomb of the Emperor Shums ooo deen Allomsh, Builder of the Kootub Minar in the Ruins of Old Delhi is a 1866 by Samuel Bourne, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a quiet courtyard with a domed tomb at its center, half-hidden by trees and crumbling walls. The light is soft, almost golden, as if the sun is setting. This photo was taken in the 1860s, long before modern restorations. It shows the tomb of a Mughal emperor just as it was—weathered, overgrown, and forgotten by time. Bourne’s images are some of the only records we have of these sites before they were cleaned up and changed. If you like this quiet look at history, check out more of 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 20th-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.
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