1866
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Simla. The Mall near Combermere Bridge is a 1866 by Samuel Bourne, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a busy street in Simla, India, lined with British-style buildings and people walking under shady trees. Bourne took this photo in the 1860s when the British ruled India. The scene looks calm, but it’s actually a record of how the British shaped the town. The trees and bridge were built by them, and the people are a mix of locals and British officials. To see more of these early photos, 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.
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