1866
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Shimla. The Mall or Principal is a 1866 by Samuel Bourne, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a busy street in Shimla, India, lined with British-style buildings and people walking under a bright sky. This photo was taken in the 1860s by a British photographer who traveled across India. It’s one of the earliest images of the city, showing how the British built their own version of home in the Himalayas. The photo also helps us see what the place looked like before modern changes. If you like old photos of faraway places, 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 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.
See the richer artist page
