Museum objects, artifacts, and archival items from the Sarmaya collection.
Located in the delightful mountainous region of present-day Uttarakhand, Landour in the early 19th century was a place where a long-term care facility (infirmary) was constructed for the British Indian Army. The area ultimately evolved into an important British cantonment. Thomas Rust first appears credited as a photographer in 1869 as an assistant to FW… Read more »
The Watson’s Hotel, earlier the Esplanade Hotel, is the oldest surviving cast-iron structure in India. It was named after its first owner, John Watson, an English businessman in Bombay. The original cast iron objects were designed by the engineer Rowland Mason Ordish, who constructed the various parts in Britain and shipped to India. The construction… Read more »
This is a 2-part panoramic view of Bombay (Mumbai) from the late 19th – early 20th century by and unidentified photographer. Read about the birth of commercial photography in 19th-century Bombay here.
The Sanchi Stupa is one of the oldest and finest example of the architecture of the Shunga era. It consists of a large hemispherical dome, which was built over another stupa that dated back to the 3rd century BC and was built by the Emperor Ashoka Maurya. The stupa was later extended around the 1st… Read more »
‘Futtypore Sikri’ is a highly Anglicised spelling of Agra’s Fatehpur Sikri. It was founded as the capital of Mughal Empire in 1571 by Akbar and served in this role from 1571 to 1585. Fatehpur is Persian for ‘city of victory’ and Sikri comes from the name of the village that occupied this spot before Akbar gave… Read more »
Sir Robert Montgomery was a British administrator in India. He was appointed to the Indian civil service in 1827 and at the start of the Uprising of India, he disarmed the native garrisons in Lahore. He was awarded with a knighthood for this action. After the quelling of the Uprising, Montgomery served as Chief Commissioner… Read more »
In this painted photograph of Jiwaji Rao Scindia of Gwalior (r.1925-1948), one can notice how the backdrop has been painted over the picture. Here, the setting is that of a European garden. Some rudimentary architecture is in place, but the rest of the space is left blank. Look closer at the young prince’s face, and… Read more »
This unusual fish-shaped boat belonged to Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh, who was forced out of his kingdom into exile by the British in 1856. After the Uprising of 1857, over which the British prevailed but just barely, the boat was sunk and this photograph staged to symbolically mark the end of… Read more »
William Louis Henry Skeen was a late 19th-century photographer active in Ceylon, ie Sri Lanka. A lot of his imagery was focused on the island’s tea and coffee plantations, landscapes and people. By the 1870s, WLH Skeen & Co. became Ceylon’s most successful photography company and continued to thrive under various directors until 1920.
Sir Henry Tombs was gazetted to the Bengal Artillery as a Second Lieutenant and served in the First and Second Anglo-Sikh wars, as well as the Uprising of 1857. More about the Uprising here and fascinating insights from the frontlines and on the ground by Prof. Rudrangshu Mukherjee here. Felice Beato was a European photographer renowned… Read more »
In the West, hand-painting was only used to add delicate highlights or make modest adjustments to images. But the method took a special and distinctively vivid turn in India. Indian royals were first enamoured with photography, but they quickly began to believe that there was something lacking in the images. Something of the grandeur and… Read more »
This photograph of a group of unidentified women from central India was taken by PA Herzog and P Higgins. Herzog and Higgins were two Englishmen who worked in Central India. Herzog presumably learned the art of photography in Jabalpur from John Blees, who produced an instructional manual on the subject. Both Herzog and Higgins worked… Read more »
Hutwa Raj was a feudal estate belonging to the Bhumihar Brahmins of Baghochia dynasty and it was located in the Saran Division of present-day Bihar. Read about Indian kings and their fabulous jewels here. This studio portrait of the Maharaja is an albumen print mounted on a cabinet card. The front of the cabinet card… Read more »
This is a cabinet card portrait of an unidentified noble of Mewar in his traditional garb. His turban is tilted to his left and fixed with ornamental jewels. He is also wearing earrings and necklaces. Read about Indian kings and their fabulous jewels here. On the back of the photograph is printed the name of… Read more »
The Kingdom of Cochin came into existence around the sixth century AD. According to tradition, Kochi’s first king was Vir Kerala Varma, a title held by the Rajas of Cochin even till in the early 20th century. This is an official portrait of Raja Varma, Rajarshi of Cochin who succeeded the throne in October 1895.… Read more »
Manisha Gera Baswani reinterprets traditional Indian miniature paintings with a contemporary twist. In this painting from a series titled Luminously Between Eternities, a tree is depicted in the grip of an ‘aandhi’ or storm. The tree is delineated in a rather detailed manner and you can observe a lot of texture in its leaves and… Read more »
This painting by Bhupen Khakhar has both a sculptural as well as a traditional two-dimensional quality to it. The base of the painting is meant to physically resemble a temple’s wall, with its uneven thick brush strokes, and the use of crimson-red and yellow-ochre, auspicious colours in Hinduism. Traces of the Devanagiri script appear in… Read more »
Could the artist’s love for Mughal miniatures be any more evident! There is a lot of symbolism in Alexander Gorlizki’s works and it centers around the interchanging of animal and human forms. Here a stout man reading a book appears to have a lion’s head, and a warrior with an elephant’s head is seen riding… Read more »
In this painting, Dibin Thilakan is tapping into the realm between the conscious and subconscious. This painting has seven different figures, all in neatly sectioned parts of the artwork, engaging in completely different activities. This painting is almost like an aerial-view of the forest, offering a voyeuristic perspective on couples having sex, a Narcissus-like man… Read more »
Rabin Mondal depicts Christ in his most vulnerable physical state. He can barely stand under the weight of the cross and collapses on his disciples’ arms on the long walk to his Crucifixion. The three figures are frozen in distress, their bodies wracked with suffering and their spirit filled with sorrowful anticipation at the end… Read more »