Tombs near Delhi, 1860s.

 

A picture from the National Galleries of Scotland titled ‘Tombs Near Delhi’. It comes from Eugene Impey’s album on India from the 1860s. Impey was a colonial official and, like Samuel Bourne (whom I’ve mentioned in earlier posts), an early photographic pioneer.

I’m not sure exactly where this is in Delhi, but unlike Bourne’s photographs of a depopulated city at the time, this one is interesting (perhaps an outlier for the time) as it shows a hive of activity around the tombs. There are people in the foreground, and in the distance on the left, others going about their everyday routines. On the right, there’s a blurred figure laying out a charpoy.

It’s possible this was an encampment, with Impey’s retinue of servants carrying on with their work. Or perhaps, as was often the case across India before tombs were turned into ‘monuments,’ this was simply a village, alive and inhabited, with the tombs woven into the fabric of daily life. 

Anyhow, I'll see you next week. 

Source- https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/29788?search=delhi&page=1&search_set_offset=69