1866
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Upper Himmalayahs. View of the Mountain of Bunderpoonch with the Jumnootri Peak, 20,458 above the Level of the Sea is a 1866 by Samuel Bourne, a Impressionism work, depicting Kashmir, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a sharp, snowy peak—Bunderpoonch—rising above a valley of dark green trees and pale rock. This isn’t a painting; it’s a photograph. Bourne lugged a heavy camera up the Himalayas in the 1860s, when most Brits still thought India was just jungles and temples. The crisp shadows and thin air make the mountain look almost fake, like a cardboard cut-out. If you like crisp mountain views, look up the subject of England—Bourne’s photos of the Lake District feel just as fresh.
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
