No. 23. Pugahm Myo [Pagan]. Figures in Damayangyee Pagoda [Dhamma-yan-gyi].

Photography and Media

1855, printed 1856

Linnaeus Tripe
English, 1822–1902

Linnaeus Tripe produced some of the earliest photographs ever made of British India and Burma. The British ruled large parts of India through the East India Company, a corporation with its own private armies and governmental functions. Tripe rose through the ranks of the Company’s army and began to experiment with photography in the early 1850s, photographing temples and other Indian monuments. In 1855, James Broun-Ramsay, the British governor general of India, commissioned him to join a diplomatic mission to Burma as its official photographer to document architecture and points of interest. When the complete series was exhibited in 1857, the jury called the photographs “excellent; remarkable for great distinctness and also for their unusual and beautiful tint.” In this photograph of the famous Buddhist Dhammayangyi temple, four disciples of Guatama Buddha are seated with lotus flowers as their footstools.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Photography and Media

Artist: Linnaeus Tripe
Title: No. 23. Pugahm Myo [Pagan]. Figures in Damayangyee Pagoda [Dhamma-yan-gyi].
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1855
Medium: Salted paper print, from the album "Burma Views" (1857)
Dimensions: Image/paper: 26.8 × 33.4 cm (10 9/16 × 13 3/16 in.); Mount: 45.6 × 58.3 cm (18 × 23 in.)
Credit Line: Through prior purchase with Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number: 2013.14
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/216582/manifest.json

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.