Early Bombay Photography

Professor of Anthropology and Visual Culture, University College London

2010–2014. She was the inaugural visiting professor of curatorial studies at Jawaharlal Nehru

Professor, Visual Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

for Independent Curators International, New York. Hapgood received her initial professional “In the absence of any single image archive for early photography in Bombay, Susan Hapgood has created an impressive and delightful one here, led by her curator’s eye and sprinkled with important new gems from the textual record. This book takes the next step in our understanding of photography of and from Bombay.”

training in New York at the Guggenheim Museum and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and has curated exhibitions including A Fantastic Legacy: Early Bombay Photography, Energy Plus (at the 2012 Shanghai Biennale), Flux Attitudes, Neo-Dada: Redefining Art 1958–62, Slightly Unbalanced, and In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art. The author of six books and numerous articles on modern and contemporary art, Hapgood received a Master of Arts degree in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

OTHER TITLES OF INTEREST

Unveiling India: The Early Lensmen (1850–1910)

“Situates under-recognized Bombay photographers within latest art historical frameworks. An important contribution to our understanding of early photography in India. Wellresearched and gracefully written.”

Deepali Dewan

Iftikhar Dadi

Senior Curator, South Asian Art & Culture, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Associate Professor, Department of History of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca

BOMBAY PHOTOGRAPHY

University, founding director of the Mumbai Art Room, and previously, director of exhibitions

Kavita Singh

EARLY

Christopher Pinney

SUSAN HAPGOOD is an art historian and curator based in New York who lived in Mumbai from

“Gathering little-known images from diverse collections, and asking lively questions of them, this book makes an important contribution to the history of photography and to urban history as well.”

Hapgood

“Susan Hapgood’s scholarship and enthusiasm provide insight and visual delights. This is a wonderful love letter to Bombay and the early photographers who created its image.”

Rahaab Allana and Davy Depelchin

Printed in India

Edited by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

MAPIN PUBLISHING

The Uprising of 1857 (Forthcoming)

CONTEMPORARY ARTS TRUST, MUMBAI

Santanu Das

CONTEMPORARY ARTS TRUST, MUMBAI www.mumbaiartroom.org

PHOTOGRAPHY Susan Hapgood

EARLY

PHOTOGRAPHY

E

arly photography flourished throughout India, with particular vigour in the city of Bombay (Mumbai). British colonizers and indigenous Indians were both active within just a few

years of the medium’s invention.

Long before the introduction of moving pictures, and long before Bollywood, Bombay was the first Indian city where the photographic needs of the public—including more affluent indigenous Indians as well as British—were catered to. Bombay was the commercial heart of the country, and therefore more up to date with new technology and developments. Already by the 1850s, more Indians were practicing this new method in Bombay than anywhere else in the country, perhaps in Asia.

The aim of this publication in researching under-recognized photographers of the time like Narayan Daji, Hurrichund Chintamon, Shivshanker Narayen and Shapoor N. Bhedwar is to contribute new information for a local history that is still very much in formation. Following a roughly chronological trajectory, the volume looks at some of the earliest surviving Bombay photographs, and moves through differing eras to the end of the 19th century, covering architectural studies and landscapes, portraits and ethnographic studies, and the documentation of trade and technological advancements that produced such spectacular pictures.

Indian Troops in Europe: 1914–1918

MAPIN PUBLISHING www.maninpub.com

EARLY

Newly excavated data will augment the scholarship readily available on this period of photography, and on some of the best-known 19th century photographers active in Bombay: Thomas Biggs, William Henry Pigou, William Johnson, Colin Murray, John Edward Saché, Edward Taurines, Samuel Bourne, and Lala Deen Dayal.

With 95 photographs Front cover: Group of mistress and pupils of the Government Normal School, Bombay (see page 118) Back cover: Trench of East wall cut through rock, looking south [Victoria Dock construction, Bombay] (see page 110)

EARLY

PHOTOGRAPHY

E

arly photography flourished throughout India, with particular vigour in the city of Bombay (Mumbai). British colonizers and indigenous Indians were both active within just a few

years of the medium’s invention.

Long before the introduction of moving pictures, and long before Bollywood, Bombay was the first Indian city where the photographic needs of the public—including more affluent indigenous Indians as well as British—were catered to. Bombay was the commercial heart of the country, and therefore more up to date with new technology and developments. Already by the 1850s, more Indians were practicing this new method in Bombay than anywhere else in the country, perhaps in Asia.

The aim of this publication in researching under-recognized photographers of the time like Narayan Daji, Hurrichund Chintamon, Shivshanker Narayen and Shapoor N. Bhedwar is to contribute new information for a local history that is still very much in formation. Following a roughly chronological trajectory, the volume looks at some of the earliest surviving Bombay photographs, and moves through differing eras to the end of the 19th century, covering architectural studies and landscapes, portraits and ethnographic studies, and the documentation of trade and technological advancements that produced such spectacular pictures.

Newly excavated data will augment the scholarship readily available on this period of photography, and on some of the best-known 19th century photographers active in Bombay: Thomas Biggs, William Henry Pigou, William Johnson, Colin Murray, John Edward Saché, Edward Taurines, Samuel Bourne, and Lala Deen Dayal.

With 95 photographs

Front cover: Group of mistress and pupils of the Government Normal School, Bombay (see page 118) Back cover: Trench of East wall cut through rock, looking south [Victoria Dock construction, Bombay] (see page 110)

EARLY

PHOTOGRAPHY

EARLY

PHOTOGRAPHY Susan Hapgood

Mapin Publishing in association with Contemporary Arts Trust, Mumbai Supported by the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust

This book is dedicated to Aaron Schwarz.

First published in India in 2015 by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd in association with Contemporary Arts Trust, Mumbai (also known as Mumbai Art Room) with the support of the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust, expanding upon A Fantastic Legacy: Early Bombay Photography, an exhibition presented in 2013 by the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan in Mumbai as part of the FOCUS Photography Festival.

Simultaneously published in the United States of America in 2015 by Grantha Corporation E: mapin@mapinpub.com

Distributed in North America by Antique Collectors’ Club T: 1 800 252 5231 • F: 413 529 0862 E: info@antiquecc.com www.antiquecollectorsclub.com Distributed in United Kingdom and Europe by Gazelle Book Services Ltd. T: +44 1524 68765 • F: 44 1524 63232 E: sales@gazellebooks.co.uk www.gazellebookservices.co.uk Distributed in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar by Paragon Asia Co. Ltd T: +66 2877 7755 • F: 66 2468 9636 E: info@paragonasia.com

Distributed in Malaysia by Areca Books T: 604-2610307 • E: arecabooks@gmail.com Distributed in the Rest of the World by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd 706 Kaivanna, Panchvati, Ellisbridge, Ahmedabad 380006 INDIA T: +91 79 40 228 228 | F: +91 79 40 228 201 E: mapin@mapinpub.com www.mapinpub.com © Contemporary Arts Trust, Mumbai, India Text © Susan Hapgood All photographs reproduced with permission.

The moral rights of Susan Hapgood to be identified as author of this work are asserted.

Page 2 John Edward Saché

Page 4 John Edward Saché

In the vicinity of Bombay, India

Malabar Hill, Bombay, India

c. 1875, Albumen silver print, photographer’s reference 419, 235 x 290 mm Courtesy of Roland Belgrave Vintage Photography, Brighton

c. 1869, Albumen silver print, photographer’s reference 396, 235 x 290 mm Courtesy of Roland Belgrave Vintage Photography, Brighton

All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-81-89995-92-8 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-47-5 (Grantha) LCCN: 2014949291 Copyediting: Vinutha Mallya / Mapin Editorial Proofreading: Neha Manke and Ankona Das / Mapin Editorial Design: Jalp Lakhia / Mapin Design Studio Printed in India

CONTENTS

6 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 12 Photography Arrives 26 Narayan Daji 32 Early Publications, Ethnography, and Hurrichund Chintamon 60 Agendas, Patronage and Clientele 76 Architecture, Archaeology and Topographical Views 98 Industry, Trade, Transportation and Commissions 123 In the Artistic Context: Shapoor N. Bhedwar and Pictorialism 129 Expanding Histories 133 Endnotes

Acknowledgements

T

here were many people who helped make this book a reality, starting with Christopher Pinney. One of the most eminent scholars in this field of study,

he was extremely generous with advice and leads, in effect making me feel welcome as a potential new contributor. When I began to grasp the depths and many possible areas of concentration, and wade into the significant body of writing on Indian photography, it was critical to have the early encouragement of many individuals: Geoffrey Batchen, Pramod Kumar, Jyotindra Jain, Sharada Dwivedi, and Esa Epstein. Throughout the ongoing research, numerous people gladly answered questions and pointed me in fruitful directions, including Pheroza Godrej, Ketaki Sheth, Padmini Mirchandani, Priya Jhaveri, Mortimer Chatterjee, Aditya Ruia, Gael Newton, Hugh Rayner, Deepali Dewan, Sophie Gordon, and John Falconer. I thank all of them for their trust, generosity of spirit, and selflessness in readily sharing information.

When I had no outlet and only a rabid interest in nineteenth-century Indian photography, Elise Foster Vander Elst, Matthieu Foss and Nicola Antaki came to the rescue by inviting me to curate an exhibition for their ambitious public venture, the inaugural FOCUS Photography Festival in Mumbai. They invited the Max Mueller Bhavan/Goethe Institute to play a central presenting role, which 6

former director Marla Stukenberg embraced with commitment. With Shefali Kothari as communications strategist, they all egged me on, suggesting excellent ways to make the presentation engaging to a broad audience, promoting and improving the plans from start to finish. The FOCUS Photographic Festival offered me funds and interns, who provided a big leg up during development— I am grateful to Arti Jatar, who assisted with early research, and to Jessica Cator, who enthusiastically took on assignments ranging from children’s workshop organization to sourcing images at the last minute from key institutions. Suhani Parekh solved problems in the wink of an eye, assisting me throughout the development of the project, including taking time from her own busy schedule to conduct research in the British Library’s photography holdings. Collectors Farooq Issa, Gopal Nair, Jehangir Sorabjee, and Dilnavaz Mehta opened their archives, sharing insights and knowledge and entrusting me with the care of their loans for the benefit of public display at the Max Mueller Bhavan. At the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta and Madhura Wairkar-Parab generously supported my preliminary research into their fragile glass-platenegative holdings. Thanks are due as well to Rahaab Allana and Shilpi Goswami at the Alkazi Collection of Photography, in New Delhi, for answering numerous rounds of questions, providing loans for the exhibition, and images for reproduction in this publication.

I express profound gratitude to Firdaus Gandavia, Vishnuvardhan T., and to the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust for believing in the validity and importance of this exhibition and publication, and for agreeing to provide the lion’s share of the funding. Brinda Miller, Kayomi Engineer and the trustees of the Kala Ghoda Association stepped in at the eleventh hour to help the project hurdle bureaucratic barriers. My fellow trustees of the Mumbai Art Room, officially known as the Contemporary Arts Trust—Chairperson Diana Campbell 7

Betancourt, Deepika Sorabjee, Arshiya Lokhandwala, and the institution’s current director, Zasha Colah—have happily accepted the project under the aegis of the organization, for which I am very thankful.

It has been a privilege to work with Bipin Shah and Mapin Publishing. I would like to acknowledge, in particular, Jalp Lakhia for his inspired design of the book, and Cornelia Lauf for making me see how perfect this design is for the project.

Credit is also due to Vinutha Mallya for her helpful edits, Anne Thompson in the US for her additional editorial input, and Neha Manke and Ankona Das for their meticulous proofreading. The book would never have seen the light of day without the extraordinary abilities of Shefali Kothari, who knew precisely how, when, and where to promote the publication proposal. Her professionalism and experience were decisive at a critical juncture. I am grateful, too, to my dear friend Diana Murphy of Metropolis Books and to Meera Ahuja of The Shoestring Publisher for advising me on the publishing and making of books.

Finally, none of this would happen without the loving support of my husband, Aaron Schwarz—my fellow adventurer on our extended introductory visit to India—who inspires me and always encourages me to reach for my dreams.

Susan Hapgood

8

Introduction

E

arly photography flourished throughout India, with particular vigour in the city of Bombay (Mumbai). British colonizers and indigenous Indians

were both active within just a few years of the medium’s invention. The period under investigation spans roughly sixty years, bracketed on the front end by the introduction of photography in 1839, and on the tail end by the invention of mass-produced cameras in 1900. During these years, Bombay was an enterprising and diverse port city, fuelled by capital and labour from the cotton and opium trades. The East India Company governed the city from 1787 until 1858, when the British government took over following the First War of Independence in 1857. Nineteenth-century images made by Bombay photographers as well as those passing through the city are now spread all over the world, with heavy concentrations in the British Library, London; the Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi; and the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum. These photographs have been lightning rods for postcolonial and urban studies scholars, anthropologists, and historians, and they are equally engaging to the curator’s eye, which is where this particular study originates.

The images elicit differing readings depending on who is doing the looking, and in what context. Slippage between categories and interpretations abounds—the photographs are archival documents, family keepsakes, souvenirs, ethnographic 9

studies, racist and exotic images, collectible artifacts, and, indeed, works of art.

Sometimes they are all of the above.

Since the 1980s, scholarship on Indian photography has developed from a postcolonialist approach, predicated on Edward Said’s writings on Orientalism and Michel Foucault’s theories relating knowledge to power. Many prior histories of nineteenth-century Indian photography posit the camera as a technological tool of the West, used to create images for the verification and justification of colonial rule.1 Over the past ten years or so, this binary discourse of West versus non-West has splintered, complicated by mitigating factual and theoretical considerations: the steady development of Subaltern studies of South Asian culture, producing a growing body of knowledge on Indian photographers; research into the lively portrait-studio practices serving a middle- and upper-class clientele in Bombay from the 1850s onwards; study of hand-painted photography, and of the large number of surviving photographic albums produced throughout the princely states by maharajas and Nawabs—evidence that Indians quickly harnessed photography for their own political, social, and propagandistic purposes. Without denying that photography was used in Bombay for the study and subjugation of Indian subjects—to document the “improvements” introduced by the British—and as souvenirs and curiosities for foreigners, the images in this particular study have been selected according to wide criteria, most often favouring highly subjective aesthetic decisions. Whenever known, the photographs’ original contexts are brought into play, with the intention of expanding and disrupting neat histories of these complex cultural artifacts.

Lens-based imagery deeply permeated the everyday life of Bombay. The origins of Indian photography were tied to the local material, retail, and consumer practices of the middle and upper classes. The popularity of photography 10

certainly arose from the desire to produce a body of knowledge, but also from the desire of European residents to keep up with this new technology. These photographs are charged with the political, social, scientific, and aesthetic agendas of the people who produced and consumed them.2 Long before the invention of moving pictures, and long before Bollywood, Bombay was the first Indian city where the photographic needs of the public—including more affluent indigenous Indians as well as British colonists—were catered to.3 Bombay was the commercial heart of the country, and therefore more up to date with new technology and developments. Already by the 1850s, more Indians were practicing this new method in Bombay than anywhere else in the country, indeed perhaps in Asia.4 As material was gathered for this publication, I paid particular attention to Bombay-based photographers who have been accorded less attention over the years. The aim in researching underrecognized individuals—Narayan Daji, Hurrichund Chintamon, Shivshanker Narayen and Shapoor N. Bhedwar— was to contribute new information for a local history that is still very much in formation, and highlight its importance within broader photographic tradition. Following a roughly chronological trajectory, I will look at some of the earliest surviving Bombay photographs, and move through differing thematic groupings to the end of the century, covering architectural studies and landscapes, portraits and ethnographic studies, and the documentation of trade and technological advancements that produced such spectacular pictures.

Newly excavated data will augment the scholarship readily available on this period of photography, and on some of the best-known nineteenth-century photographers active in Bombay: Thomas Biggs, William Henry Pigou, William Johnson, Colin Murray, John Edward Saché, Edward Taurines, Samuel Bourne, and Raja Deen Dayal.5 11

1. Photographer Unknown Colaba Causeway, n.d.; negative c. 1850s; 20th-century print Gelatin silver print from glass plate negative, 83 x 108 mm (approx.)

Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum

12

Photography Arrives

T

he daguerreotype process was announced to the world in 1839, and by December of that year, a series of three newspaper articles in The Bombay

Times and Journal of Commerce laid out the daguerreotype method step by step for English readers, with information copied from a pamphlet published by LouisJacques-Mandé Daguerre.6 In the same year, the paper negative calotype process, developed by William Henry Fox Talbot, was also introduced. As one Bombay reporter described the new way of making calotype photographs in 1840, “the sun beam itself traces out for us the image of whatever it illuminated and from [this] we can now multiply impressions to whatsoever extent we choose.”7 A surviving glass plate negative (fig. 1) in the collection of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum might provide evidence of the earliest photograph taken in India. The image was taken looking north along the newly constructed Colaba Causeway towards Fort. In the distance, the tower of St. Thomas’s Cathedral is noticeably absent. The museum’s old inventory notation of 1840, if accurate, would have to mean that the glass plate negative is a later document of a calotype print.

Already by 1844, any wealthy person could have his or her portrait taken in the Girgaum neighborhood of the city, and daguerreotypes were presented 13

for public viewing in two very prominent locations, the Asiatic Society and St. Andrew’s Church library.8 The Bengal-born photographer Augustus Roussac was making daguerreotypes in Bombay by 1849, and opened a daguerreotype studio the following year. He was followed by William Johnson two years later.9 However, in comparison to other cities in the United States and Europe, there is not much mention in newspapers of daguerreotypes or calotypes in Bombay during the 1840s, nor are there many to be found in public and private collections, perhaps indicating that this medium was scarce. If true, one explanation could have been the highly humid climate. In the comparably hot and wet environment of Hawaii around the same time, the photographer making

2. James Robertson (attrib.)

Distant view of the Fort Bassein, Bombay, c. 1850, Albumen silver print, 198 x 260 mm The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 84.XO.735.1.54

14

daguerreotypes had to keep a fire burning inside the darkroom in order to lower the humidity level. Furthermore, the cost of one Indian daguerreotype in these years exceeded the price of a dozen bottles of imported champagne, giving some idea of its limited accessibility.10 Beyond expense, the technical expertise for either the daguerreotype or the calotype was considerable, requiring a firm grasp of chemistry, patience, and luck. There are sporadic mentions in the local newspapers of photographic studios in Bombay in the 1840s. In 1845, the Court of Directors of the British East India Company officially encouraged the government of Bombay to study the “useful art of photography in any of the scientific or educational institutions under [its] control or influence.”11 An early image of the marshy coastline just north of Bombay, with Portuguese ruins in the distance (fig. 2) was reportedly taken in 1850 by James Robertson, who was a highly respected photographer based in Constantinople at the time. By the mid-1850s, photography really took hold, when daguerreotypes, calotypes, and salt prints were on the decline, and albumen prints made from wet collodion on glass plate negatives began to predominate. The art of photography is described as “absolutely the rage everywhere” in an 1854 letter to a Bombay newspaper editor, practised by all the “non-commissioned officers and privates of the Sapper and Miner corps,” whose works were on exhibit that year.12 The first photographers who can be easily traced in Bombay were an assortment of amateurs from various professions—British officers and civil servants including Captain Harry Barr of the infantry, Captain Thomas Biggs of the artillery, railway engineer Captain Charles Scott, and William Johnson, William Henderson, W. H. Stanley Crawford; and medical professionals such as Dr. Willam Harry Pigou of the Bombay Medical Service, Dr. George R. Ballingall, 15

3. William Johnson

Panorama of Bombay, c. 1855, Eight albumen silver prints, each print 190 x 240 mm, overall 190 x 1920 mm Courtesy of Roland Belgrave Vintage Photography, Brighton

16

17

18

19

4. Photographer Unknown Angria’s Colaba, from Vibart Collection of Views in South India, 1855, Albumen silver print, 95 x 194 mm British Library, London/© British Library Board, Photo 254/3 (20),

20

assistant professor of surgery at Grant Medical College, and Dr. Narayan Daji, a graduate of the same college.13 The earliest images of Bombay are views of city streets and buildings. An ambitious eight-panel panorama by William Johnson captures the burgeoning city (fig. 3), while a relatively underknown image titled “Angria’s Colaba” shows the fort of Maratha ruler Shivaji, which lies south of Bombay along the coast (fig. 4). Among the other early images selected for inclusion in this publication are two salt print portraits depicting Indian sitters (figs. 5 and 6), made for unknown reasons.

Captain Thomas Biggs was appointed “Government Photographer” and began taking pictures of temples and mosques for the Asiatic Society of Bombay in 1855, making about a hundred paper negatives of Bijapur, Aihole, Badami

5. Photographer Unknown

Portrait of an Indian gentleman, Bombay, c. 1850, Salt print from glass negative, 235 x 180 mm Royal Ontario Museum Collection, 2012.73.2.

Photo courtesy of Roland Belgrave Vintage Photography 6. Photographer unknown

Portrait of an Indian gentleman from the Sonar caste, Bombay, c. 1850, Salt print, 200 x 150 mm Royal Ontario Museum Collection, 2012.73.1.

Photo courtesy of Roland Belgrave Vintage Photography

21

22

Facing page 7. Thomas Biggs or William Henry Pigou (attrib.)

and other sites in south-western India. It was decided that the new medium of photography afforded a much faster way to create images than prior hand-drawn

methods.14

Upon being called back to duty, Biggs was replaced

by Dr. William Henry Pigou of the Bombay Medical Service, who worked from December 1855 to early 1857. A compendium of their images was later published in London in three volumes, funded by Gujarati Jain businessmen Kurosondas Madhowdas and Premchund

Raichund.15

While the quality of these

photographs (figs. 7 and 8) is considered comparable to the best work of their 23

Columns of the Temple of Ambernath—Bombay Presidency, c. 1855–1858, Albumen silver print, 203 x 259 mm The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 84.XO.735.1.55

8. Thomas Biggs or William Henry Pigou (attrib.)

Entrance to the large Karlee Cave—Bombay, c. 1855–1858, Albumen silver print, 206 x 244 mm The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 84.XO.735.1.56

Narayan Daji

U

ntil recently, little was known about the life of this photographic pioneer.21

Narayan Daji and his older brother, Bhau Daji, were born in a village on the

border of Goa. Bhau went on to achieve significant recognition as a scholar and doctor, while Narayan’s chief contribution was to the field of photography. Their father was a painter of clay figurines by profession and also a poet; but despite the family’s humble means, both boys studied in Bombay and steadily worked their way to prominent positions in society. Narayan Daji was educated first at Elphinstone Institution, and then graduated from Grant Medical College in 1852.

Having won prizes in theoretical and practical chemistry at medical school, he must have started learning about photography in the early 1850s, or perhaps before. He mastered the calotype waxed-paper negative process, and was qualified enough to be considered (but not hired) to teach the inaugural course in photography at Elphinstone, which commenced in 1855.

Daji regularly attended meetings of the Photographic Society at Town Hall, and we are fortunate to have written descriptions of the images he presented to the other members there. Society reports from three different meetings in 1855 describe his “very fine specimens of prints of views and buildings from waxed paper negatives,” “views of Grant College, a Hindu temple, and a tope [grove] 26

of trees” (technique unspecified), photographs of “the Bombay Green and St. Thomas’s Cathedral” and “the Esplanade” made from the calotype process. In the society’s first exhibition of 1855, he showed two pictures, one of which was of the man from Kattiawar [Kathiawar] (fig. 9). He was made a member of the society in 1856, the year he dominated the exhibition in Town Hall; these photographs, which depicted landscapes, temples, mosques, and rivers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and elsewhere, were reportedly very well received by viewers and deemed of better quality than the photos of others, including W.H. Stanley Crawford (who did get the Elphinstone teaching job). In 1857, Daji displayed 31 portrait studies at the Bengal Photographic Society, with titles such as “Snake Charmers,” “A Bhandaree or Toddywalla,” (fig. 10) and “A Bheel Woman.” The same year, a different group of Daji’s photographs shown at Bombay Town Hall were considered “equal in execution to the best of European photographs” by a writer for The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce. These included “a series of views of Mahomedan architecture in Guzerat, such as the beautiful Musjid, tombs, and colleges of Ahmedabad, Butwa etc., the sacred Hill of Valitana covered with clusters of Jain temples, the historical Banian tree, Kubeer Bur, views of Bombay, and portraits of eminent native and Europe gentlemen,” all of which were greatly admired for their soft tone, clear colour, and sharp detail. His painted photographs of this time, mentioned unfortunately without any further description, were less favoured.

From 1855–62, Narayan Daji’s photographic studio was located on Rampart Row in the Fort area—the same street occupied by many other prominent photographers. In a 1856 newspaper article titled “Photographic Pirates,” Daji accused fellow photographer William Johnson of selling and taking credit for his photograph “High Priests of the Bhatias and Banyas” in England (which may help explain the prominent credit accorded a different photograph by Daji 27

9. Narayan Daji

A Rajpoot Grassia native of Kattiawar, with a hooka or smoking apparatus in his hand, 1855, Albumen silver print, 279 x 229 mm The Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi, ACP: 2005.01.0001(15)

28

10. Narayan Daji

A Bhandaree or Toddeewalla, A Hindoo, 1855, Albumen silver print, 279 x 229 mm The Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi, ACP 2005.01.0001 (21)

29

printed later in Johnson’s compendium of ethnographic images, The Oriental Races and Tribes, Residents and Visitors of Bombay [fig. 11]).22 Daji was invited in the 1860s to accompany Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, Governor of Bombay, on his travels photographing places of interest and to accompany Lord Northbrook, who would later become Viceroy of India, for the same purpose when Northbrook visited Hyderabad in the 1870s at the invitation of the Nizam’s prime minister, Salar Jung.23 Daji was not only a photographer: he was appointed Sheriff of Bombay in 1856; wrote several books, one on chemistry and another on dyes and dyestuffs; and worked as a professor of botany and materia medica (pharmacology) at Grant Medical College. He died in 1875 of “bilious remittent fever” at the age of 47. A newspaper obituary described him as having had “a very extensive connection amongst all classes of natives.”

When Narayan Daji made his photographs during the pioneering years of the 1850s, was he choosing his own subject matter or following government directives? The images of trees described in newspaper accounts would certainly align with his interest in botany and natural science. Given his familiarity with waxed paper negatives, could the unattributed early salt print portraits (see figs. 5 and 6) be his, perhaps? Daji, like his contemporaries, pursued the British colonial agenda of documenting and classifying different ethnographic groups and creating a pictorial inventory of architecture, all part of an effort to capture local customs and ways of living that the ruling class feared were vanishing in the wake of modernization. It is certainly possible that some of the ethnographic documents made by Daji and others served doubly as family portraits for their sitters at this early point. The potential overlap between photography’s scientific, ethnographic and political usages, on the one hand, and the making of images for personal reasons, on the other, deserves further research.

30

11. Narayan Daji

Vallabhachรกrya Maharajas, 1860 or earlier, Albumen silver print, 234 x 160 mm Collection of Christopher Pinney

31

Early Publications, Ethnography, and Hurrichund Chintamon

S

ome of the earliest surviving photographs of Bombay appeared in the monthly Indian Amateur’s Photographic Album. Produced from 1856–59

by William Johnson and William Henderson, under the patronage of the Photographic Society, the Album usually reproduced three photographs per issue, for a total of 106 photographs.24 It was frequently advertised in Photographic Notes, the journal of the Photographic Societies of Scotland and Manchester, giving a good idea of its intended audience. Submissions were open to local and regional amateurs, who received a free copy of the Album in exchange for their negatives, allowing Johnson and Henderson to gather material for future reproductions as well.25 Images of areas of Bombay that would soon undergo drastic change appeared in several issues of the publication. Places that would be demolished within a few years, such as the Fort ramparts, the Bombay castle parapets, city gates, and neighborhoods undergoing rapid reclamation and industrialization, are all represented—it is unknown if the photographs were made with foreknowledge of the changes to come. Among the publishers’ evident motivations were the desire to document trade, and as often as not, to create “picturesque” images using the new 32

photographic medium, as in the pictures of boats and ferry at Tanna creek (figs. 12 and 13), Chowpatty Beach (a part of Back Bay; fig. 14) and Banganga Tank (attached to the Walkeshwar Temples; fig. 15).

Written texts that accompanied most of the photographs ranged from descriptions of photographs in terms of their being “sketches,” or works of art, to more concrete discussions about trade, living and work habits, and wages of people depicted. Photographs are most often credited to Johnson and Henderson but occasionally to others as well, including George Ballingall and Henry H. Hinton. The allegation that Johnson once sold a Narayan Daji photograph as his own raises the possibility that other Album images may be misattributed or that unattributed ones might be by Daji. For instance, there is no attribution for the intricate close-up titled “Banyan Tree” (fig. 16) published in the April 1857 issue, yet we know that Daji’s photograph of a “historical banyan tree” exhibited at Town Hall drew praise from The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce the same month. Another problematic instance that is difficult to reconcile: the March 1857 Album attributed to Johnson an image of a Parsi woman and child that closely resembles a photograph by Hurrichund Chintamon (fig. 17), never included in the Album, showing the same woman in the same setting but with a different child.26 Regardless, the Parsi woman and child photograph is an example of the “costumes and characters of Western India” subject matter that the Album published regularly. These images effectively surveyed different castes, occupations (see the Bengali Hamals, who carried people, and the Maratha Ghatis, who carried goods, figs. 18 and 19), and religious groups, featuring sitters selected by no discernible criteria other than their being non-European. The ways the images were composed demonstrate knowledge of wide-ranging pictorial precedents.

33

Page 34 12. Photographer Unknown Tanna no. 1—The Ferry, from The Indian

Amateur’s Photographic Album,

1958, Albumen silver print, 190 x 244 mm George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, GEH 1979.0065.0058 Page 35 13. William Johnson

Tanna. No. 2.—Native Boats in the Creek, from The Indian Amateur’s Photographic Album, 1858, Albumen silver print, 186 x 244 mm George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, 1979.0065.0064

34

“...provides keen insights into the

port city’s fantastic experiments and relationship with photography in the 19th century.”

—Kareena Gianani in Sunday MidDay

SUSAN HAPGOOD is an art historian and curator based in New York who lived in Mumbai from 2010–2014. She was the inaugural visiting professor of curatorial studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, founding director of the Mumbai Art Room, and previously, director of exhibitions for Independent Curators International, New York. Hapgood received her initial professional training in New York at the Guggenheim Museum and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and has curated exhibitions including A Fantastic Legacy: Early Bombay Photography, Energy Plus (at the 2012 Shanghai Biennale), Flux Attitudes, Neo-Dada: Redefining Art 1958–62, Slightly Unbalanced, and In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art. The author of six books

Early Bombay Photography Susan Hapgood

144 pages, 95 photographs 11 x 8.5” (279 x 216 mm), pb ISBN: 978-81-89995-92-8 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-47-5 (Grantha) ₹1950 | $39.50 | £26 2014 • World rights

and numerous articles on modern and contemporary art, Hapgood received a Master of Arts degree in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

OTHER TITLES OF INTEREST

Unveiling India: The Early Lensmen (1850–1910) Rahaab Allana and Davy Depelchin

Indian Troops in Europe: 1914–1918 Santanu Das

The Uprising of 1857 (Forthcoming) Edited by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

MAPIN PUBLISHING www.maninpub.com

CONTEMPORARY ARTS TRUST, MUMBAI www.mumbaiartroom.org

Printed in India

PHOTOGRAPHY

Professor of Anthropology and Visual Culture, University College London

2010–2014. She was the inaugural visiting professor of curatorial studies at Jawaharlal Nehru

Professor, Visual Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

for Independent Curators International, New York. Hapgood received her initial professional “In the absence of any single image archive for early photography in Bombay, Susan Hapgood has created an impressive and delightful one here, led by her curator’s eye and sprinkled with important new gems from the textual record. This book takes the next step in our understanding of photography of and from Bombay.”

training in New York at the Guggenheim Museum and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and has curated exhibitions including A Fantastic Legacy: Early Bombay Photography, Energy Plus (at the 2012 Shanghai Biennale), Flux Attitudes, Neo-Dada: Redefining Art 1958–62, Slightly Unbalanced, and In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art. The author of six books and numerous articles on modern and contemporary art, Hapgood received a Master of Arts degree in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

OTHER TITLES OF INTEREST

Unveiling India: The Early Lensmen (1850–1910)

“Situates under-recognized Bombay photographers within latest art historical frameworks. An important contribution to our understanding of early photography in India. Wellresearched and gracefully written.”

Deepali Dewan

Iftikhar Dadi

Senior Curator, South Asian Art & Culture, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Associate Professor, Department of History of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca

BOMBAY PHOTOGRAPHY

University, founding director of the Mumbai Art Room, and previously, director of exhibitions

Kavita Singh

EARLY

Christopher Pinney

SUSAN HAPGOOD is an art historian and curator based in New York who lived in Mumbai from

“Gathering little-known images from diverse collections, and asking lively questions of them, this book makes an important contribution to the history of photography and to urban history as well.”

Hapgood

“Susan Hapgood’s scholarship and enthusiasm provide insight and visual delights. This is a wonderful love letter to Bombay and the early photographers who created its image.”

Rahaab Allana and Davy Depelchin

Printed in India

Edited by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

MAPIN PUBLISHING

The Uprising of 1857 (Forthcoming)

CONTEMPORARY ARTS TRUST, MUMBAI

Santanu Das

CONTEMPORARY ARTS TRUST, MUMBAI www.mumbaiartroom.org

PHOTOGRAPHY Susan Hapgood

EARLY

PHOTOGRAPHY

E

arly photography flourished throughout India, with particular vigour in the city of Bombay (Mumbai). British colonizers and indigenous Indians were both active within just a few

years of the medium’s invention.

Long before the introduction of moving pictures, and long before Bollywood, Bombay was the first Indian city where the photographic needs of the public—including more affluent indigenous Indians as well as British—were catered to. Bombay was the commercial heart of the country, and therefore more up to date with new technology and developments. Already by the 1850s, more Indians were practicing this new method in Bombay than anywhere else in the country, perhaps in Asia.

The aim of this publication in researching under-recognized photographers of the time like Narayan Daji, Hurrichund Chintamon, Shivshanker Narayen and Shapoor N. Bhedwar is to contribute new information for a local history that is still very much in formation. Following a roughly chronological trajectory, the volume looks at some of the earliest surviving Bombay photographs, and moves through differing eras to the end of the 19th century, covering architectural studies and landscapes, portraits and ethnographic studies, and the documentation of trade and technological advancements that produced such spectacular pictures.

Indian Troops in Europe: 1914–1918

MAPIN PUBLISHING www.maninpub.com

EARLY

Newly excavated data will augment the scholarship readily available on this period of photography, and on some of the best-known 19th century photographers active in Bombay: Thomas Biggs, William Henry Pigou, William Johnson, Colin Murray, John Edward Saché, Edward Taurines, Samuel Bourne, and Lala Deen Dayal.

With 95 photographs Front cover: Group of mistress and pupils of the Government Normal School, Bombay (see page 118) Back cover: Trench of East wall cut through rock, looking south [Victoria Dock construction, Bombay] (see page 110)