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Home>Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860>South India

Introduction

Early Work in England

Return to India

The Burma Mission

South India

Note on Tripe's Prints

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s

Photographic Practices of the 1850s

Chronology

Exhibition Catalog Captain Linnaeus TripeRoger Taylor, Crispin Branfoot, with Sarah Greenough and Malcolm Daniel

AudioIntroduction to the Exhibition, lecture by Sarah Greenough, exhibition curator

Audio Symposium Lecture Part 1: ''A Glorious Galaxy of Monuments': Photography and the Archaeological Survey of India after Tripe," John Falconer

Audio Symposium Lecture Part 2: "Interpreting Early Photography in India: Medium and Method," Zahid R. Chaudhary

Audio Symposium Lecture Part 3: "Measuring Time: Linnaeus Tripe’s Inscription of the Thanjavur Temple, 1858," Maria Antonella Pelizzari

PDF Download Public Symposium Program

Linnaeus Tripe in the Collection of the National Gallery of Art

Photographs Conservation

Press Release

Exhibition Checklist

# South India

The area of south India where Tripe photographed, first in Hullabede and Belloor in 1854, then on tour from Bangalore to Madura and north to Madras in 1857–1858 (likely route marked in green). The locations are identified by their 19th-century place names, with the 21st-century names below in italics.

In 1856 Tripe was appointed photographer to the Madras Presidency, a British administrative subdivision covering much of southern India. He proposed that his work should be the “1st attempt at illustrating in a complete and systematic manner the state of a country by means of photography.” With this grand ambition and new legitimacy, he was free to choose his own locations, routes, and subject matter.

Leaving Bangalore in December 1857, he traveled south to Madura before going north to Madras. Although European artists had depicted the area earlier, Tripe was the first to photograph extensively in south India. With a history traceable to the dawn of civilization, it is laced with sacred sites, including the country’s holiest temples to the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu as well as shrines, bathing places, and pilgrimage routes. But south India was also permeated with the effects of British conquest, its efforts at civic improvement, and the pervasive influence of the British East India Company.

Exhibition catalog plates 36 and 37 illustrate the waxed-paper negative (left) and its positive print (right) of *Beekinpully: Permaul's Swing at Mariammah Covil*, December 1857–January 1858 (slides 5 and 6). The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford; Collection of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro.

By the time Tripe arrived in Madras in April 1858, he had made more than 290 large-format negatives. Working out of his studio in Bangalore, he then set about supervising the printing of nine portfolios, which had a total of 17,745 prints. He did not complete the work until early 1860.

South India
*Royacottah: Eedgah and Tomb*, December 1857–January 1858Private Collection, Washington, DC

In the 19th century, many British thought that southern India was predominantly Hindu, but this picture of two Islamic religious buildings below the hill fort at Royacottah is evidence of the significant Muslim population there.

South India
*Royacottah: View Overlooking the Country, South-Southeast from inside the Fort Gate*, December 1857–January 1858Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Given by Lady Denison

This photograph was made at the base of the hill fort at Royacottah, looking down a wall toward the gate; the fort is situated on top of the adjacent massive rock formation at right. After fierce fighting in 1791, the British captured this hill fort, which rose 900 feet above the plain and commanded a major pass. Tripe photographed it 50 years later when the fort, once considered impregnable, had been abandoned and overgrown.

South India
*Royacottah: Gate of the Hill Fort*, December 1857–January 1858The British Library, London

Tripe used a theatrical narrow band of light to illuminate the only passageway into the fort. In the text that accompanies this picture in Tripe’s portfolio, J.A.C. Boswell, an official of the East India Company, reflected on the fierce battles waged here and told of “troubled spirits ... nightly heard wailing around the rock.”

South India
*Royacottah: View from the Top of the Hill, Looking North — Northwest and by North*, December 1857–January 1858Collection of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro

South India
*Beekinpully: Permaul’s Swing at Mariammah Covil*, December 1857–January 1858, waxed-paper negativeThe Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford

Comparing this negative with its positive print (next slide) shows that Tripe’s retouching techniques allowed him to create a very different picture from the one recorded by his camera. To compensate for the overexposed foliage, he dabbed the negative with pigment to strengthen the trunk, branches, and leaves of the tree on the right in the negative and give the illusion of depth and volume. Using broader strokes, he created a convincing array of cumulus clouds to unify his composition. The overall effect of Tripe’s retouching techniques is best seen when the negative is backlit, while the marks themselves are most evident in reflected light.

South India
*Beekinpully: Permaul’s Swing at Mariammah Covil*, December 1857–January 1858Collection of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro

South India
Installation view of *Beekinpully: Permaul’s Swing at Mariammah Covil*, December 1857–January 1858 (positive print at left; waxed-paper negative at center)

South India
*Beekinpully: Veerabuddradroog*, December 1857–January 1858Wilson Centre for Photography, London

South India
*Seeringham: Jumboogasurum Pagoda, Approach to the Pagoda from West*, January 1858Wilson Centre for Photography, London

Tripe’s long exposures meant figures rarely appear in his photographs. To avoid having blurry pedestrians, he often photographed in the early morning when usually crowded sites were emptier and probably enlisted the aid of local authorities to keep the streets clear.

South India
*Seeringham: Great Pagoda, Munduppum inside Gateway*, January 1858The British Library, London

Seeringham and Trichinopoly were the sites of ferocious battles in the mid-1700s, with the British fighting against the French, who had formed their own East India Company in 1664, and their Indian allies. These cities were also the locations of some of south India’s most sacred temples, including the Ranganatha Temple, known as the Great Pagoda, seen here, one of the largest in India, covering about 150 acres. For this photograph, Tripe placed his camera at the exact center of the north–south axis of the temple to depict one of a series of perfectly aligned gateways. On both sides of the road are thatched-roof houses and shops selling offerings for the deities, such as fruit and vegetables.

South India
*Trichinopoly: Rock from the East*, January or April 1858The British Library

The numerous houses in the foreground of Tripe’s photograph indicate that the region had recovered from the devastations of the 18th-century wars between the British and the French with their Indian allies and had achieved a measure of peace and prosperity.

South India
*Trichinopoly: Musjid of Nutter Owleah, from the Head of the Lane Leading to It*, January or April 1858Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Given by Lady Denison

The musjid (place of prayer) in the background honors the Sufi mystic Nutter Owleah, who died in 1225. More commonly known as Nathar Auliya or Nathar Vali, he is credited with bringing Muslim teachings to south India.

South India
*Between Chittumputty and Teramboor: Elephant Rock, End View*, January–February 1858The British Library, London

Rising 250 feet above the plain north of Madura, this remarkable granite formation has an outline resembling that of the legendary elephant slain by Shiva. Tripe made his exposure in the early morning, when the low raking light and his carefully chosen viewpoint dramatically foreshortened the 1.5-mile-long rock to a compact mass that emphasized its elephantine appearance.

**Madura and Tanjore**

Scroll of Tripe’s 19-foot-long composite photograph, *Tanjore: Great Pagoda, Inscriptions around Bimanum* (detail), March–April 1858, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal

Beginning in January 1858, Tripe spent almost two months photographing Madura and nearby Trimium before leaving for Poodoocottah in March. The area had been the site of many battles in the mid-18th century as the British and French East India Companies fought each other, as well as local independent rulers, over territory in the Carnatic region of southern India. After the Carnatic Wars ended in 1763, the British fought a series of battles with local rulers until 1801 when they established control over the area. Many of Tripe’s photographs depict sites of major military battles and thus reverberate with significance for both the British and the local populations.

One of Tripe’s most extraordinary projects was to document the ancient Tamil inscriptions around the base of the Great Pagoda at Tanjore. In March and April of 1858, he circled the temple making 21 exposures to create a 19-foot-long panorama — the first of its kind in photography. An immensely difficult undertaking, it required Tripe to keep his camera perfectly level as he moved around the base and made multiple negatives with a similar density and tonal range.

 

    

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: The Vygay River, with Causeway, across to Madura*, January–February 1858National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Carolyn Brody Fund and Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation through Robert and Joyce Menschel, 2006.6.1

For Hindus, a sacred site is a *tirtha*, literally a ford or crossing place that allows one to pass from worldly engagement to transcendence. In Tripe’s photograph the dramatically receding causeway leads the eye to the gateway around the Minakshi Sundareshvara Temple, dedicated to the god Shiva and his consort Minakshi. Shiva is said to have created the Vygay River, which, like most rivers in the far south of India, dries up during the hottest months of the year.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: Pillars in the Recessed Portico in the Roya Gopurum, with the Base of One of the Four Sculpted Monoliths*January–February 1858The British Library, London

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: West Front of the Roya Gopurum*, January–February 1858The British Library, London

The enormous base for this unfinished gopuram, or gateway, was said to be 57 feet high and deeply buried in the ground.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: The Blackburn Testimonial*, January–February 1858The British Library, London

The column in this photograph was named after John Blackburn, who oversaw the transformation of Madura in the 1840s. He ordered old stone fortifications to be torn down and a new network of streets to be constructed. In the background Tripe also captured the domes, high roofs, and a row of free standing columns from the great palace of Trimul Naik, whose family had ruled this area of south India for hundreds of years until they were defeated by the British in 1736.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: The Great Pagoda, West Gopurum*, January–February 1858The British Library, London

This photograph posed a technical challenge for Tripe. Without a specialized camera and a very good lens, photographers could rarely get close enough to capture an entire building and simultaneously reveal its design and ornamentation. Tilting the camera upward to include the apex of a building introduced unnatural converging lines. Tripe corrected this problem by using a newly invented feature called a rising-front that enabled him to keep the back of his camera absolutely horizontal while raising the lens vertically to capture the top of the building.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: The Great Pagoda, Inside View of Gateway of East Gopurum with Veeravasuntharoya’s Munduppum in Front*,January–February 1858The British Library, London

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: Trimul Naik’s Choultry, Side Veranda from West*, January–February 1858The British Library, London

Although earlier visitors had surveyed Trimul Naik’s Choultry (a resting place for travelers), Tripe was the first person to create a thorough photographic record of the building, with 20 large photographs and 18 smaller ones. This picture of the southern aisle of the 300-foot-long columned chamber emphasized its massive scale.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: Trimul Naik’s Choultry, Center Nave from West End*, January–February 1858The British Library, London

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: The Great Pagoda, Interior View of Part of Muroothappa Sarvacar Munduppum*, January–February 1858Wilson Centre for Photography, London

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Trimium: Fort, Interior Hold, with the Main Street, Taken from the Top of the Gateway*, February 1858The British Library, London

The British fort at Trimium was a reminder of past military campaigns in the region and the establishment of British rule over south India. But Trimium was important to local Hindus because of nearby temples to Shiva and Vishnu.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Poodoocottah: Durbar*, February–March 1858The British Library, London

This picture of a formal court ceremony shows Ramachandra Tondaiman (reigned 1839–1886), raja of the princely state of Poodoocottah, enthroned beneath an elaborate canopy. Seated on European chairs are his principal nobles, including the British-appointed prime minister of Poodoocottah. Tripe thus captured the changed political world of the princely rulers in colonial India, who had acquired a taste for European amenities — furniture, gas lighting, and chandeliers — while seeing their power increasingly circumscribed.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Madura: The Great Pagoda Jewels*, January–February 1858Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Purchase, Cynthia Hazen Polsky Gift, 2005

Much of the finest jewelery of south India was intended as ornamentation for the gods, who were considered sovereigns; mortal kings ruled on their behalf. Despite the protestations of the native manager, Tripe gained privileged access to these temple jewels, generally inaccessible to Europeans, perhaps through the authority of the local agent of the East India Company. He photographed this subject and several others (see slides 8, 11, 13, and 14) using collodion glass negatives, most likely because he was working indoors with little light where the faster collodion process was advantageous.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Elliot Marbles and Other Sculpture from the Central Museum Madras: Group 26*, May–June 1858Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Rubel Collection, Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace and Richard and Ronay Menschel Gifts, 1997

In 1853 the newly founded Government Central Museum Madras acquired a collection of notable marble sculptures that the Scottish orientalist Walter Elliot had excavated from the Buddhist stupa at Amaravati in south India in 1845. A contemporary referred to them as the “Elliot marbles,” linking them to the recently discovered “Elgin marbles” from ancient Greece. Tripe photographed them where they had been left outside in a haphazard arrangement on the grounds of the museum, their display showing no understanding of their original location or arrangement.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Central Museum Madras: Group 27*, May–June 1858Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Cynthia Hazen Polsky Gift and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1991

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Tanjore: Great Pagoda, Figure Sculpted on the Side of the Inner Gopurum*, March–April 1858The British Library, London

Prints by early travelers brought the Brihadishvara Temple, known as the Great Pagoda at Tanjore, to the attention of Europeans, many of whom considered it to be the most splendid temple in India. Tripe’s pictures, such as this one featuring a finely carved, four-armed guardian figure, were the first photographs to confirm the grandeur of the structure.

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Tanjore: Great Pagoda, Entrance Looking Outwards*, March–April 1858National Gallery of Art, Washington,**Patrons’ Permanent Fund, 1995.36.120

The temple, with its deeply molded base, is built on a high platform and painted with vertical red and white stripes. These stripes, a standard element in south Indian temple wall decoration, are sometimes thought to represent the dual nature of existence: male and female, Shiva and Shakti, God and man. The temple’s base is also covered with inscriptions which Tripe photographed in a groundbreaking panorama (see the following two slides).

South India: Madura and Tanjore
Installation view of Tripe's panoramic scroll, *Tanjore: Great Pagoda, Inscriptions around Bimanum*, displaying approximately 4 of the 21 exposures

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Tanjore: Great Pagoda, Inscriptions around Bimanum*(detail), March–April 1858Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Acquired with the assistance of a grant approved by the Minister of Canadian Heritage under the terms of the Cultural Property Export and Import Act

South India: Madura and Tanjore
*Tanjore: Wrought-Iron Gun on a Cavalier in the Fort*, March–April 1858The British Library, London

This “monster gun of Tanjore,” which dates to the mid-17th century, was more than 24 feet long and 10 feet in circumference. It was said to have been fired only once causing a sound that seemed, a missionary wrote, as “if mount Meru had exploded.”

**The End of Tripe's Photographic Career**

Tripe’s fate was inextricably linked with that of the British Empire in India. In May 1857 following months of unrest, Indian soldiers in the Bengal army, sparked by religious and cultural intolerance, shot their British officers and marched on Delhi. Their rebellion encouraged others in a large section of northern and central India to join the year-long revolt. After it was quelled, the British government stripped the East India Company of its privileges and took over administration and rule of India. Although Tripe was far away from the uprising and little evidence of it appears in his photographs, these actions inaugurated a new era of regulations and oversight that soon affected him. In 1860, after hurriedly completing his multi-volume portfolio of photographs from the Madras Presidency, he was forced to close his studio as a result of cost-cutting measures. Discouraged that his work was no longer appreciated, he all but abandoned photography at the youthful age of 38.

Next: Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s

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