Interior of Sikandra Bagh After the Slaughter of 2,000 Rebels (1858)
Albumen silver print, 24×28.7 cm
In March 1858, Felice Beato (also known as ‘Felix Beato’) arrived in Lucknow with his camera and assorted photographic equipment. The British-Italian photographer, raised on the island of Corfu, was regarded as a bit of a technical wizard, having pioneered the hand-colouring of photographs. He was also credited with perfecting the then-prevalent ‘wet-plate’ process of developing photographs in the field—the process had to be finished in no more than 15 minutes from the moment of capture, necessitating the setting up of portable darkrooms. Beato would go on to become one of the earliest well-known war photographers, capturing unforgettable images from the Second Opium War.
In March 1858, however, Beato faced a very different sort of technical constraint—by the time he arrived in India, most of the bloodshed from the Sepoy Rebellion was over. He soon grew tired of photographing hollowed-out buildings and desolate streets. For his famous photograph "Interior of Sikandra Bagh", therefore, Beato tried a radically different tactic. Historians believe this photograph was completely staged. Beato had his assistants exhume dozens of Indian corpses and pose them to form the foreground you see in the image.
There’s a Hindi expression ‘gade murde ukhaadana’, which means, literally, ‘to dig up the dead’ means to dredge up long-forgotten things or phenomena. Beato’s literalization of this phrase might be gruesome, but it is the kind of detail that enhances the historic significance of a work of art. The photograph is part of ‘Touching Light’, an exhibition celebrating Indian and India-centric analog photography, hosted by Gurgaon’s Museo Camera and curated by its founder Aditya Arya.
...In March 1858, Felice Beato (also known as ‘Felix Beato’) arrived in Lucknow with his camera and assorted photographic equipment. The British-Italian photographer, raised on the island of Corfu, was regarded as a bit of a technical wizard, having pioneered the hand-colouring of photographs. He was also credited with perfecting the then-prevalent ‘wet-plate’ process of developing photographs in the field—the process had to be finished in no more than 15 minutes from the moment of capture, necessitating the setting up of portable darkrooms. Beato would go on to become one of the earliest well-known war photographers, capturing unforgettable images from the Second Opium War.
In March 1858, however, Beato faced a very different sort of technical constraint—by the time he arrived in India, most of the bloodshed from the Sepoy Rebellion was over. He soon grew tired of photographing hollowed-out buildings and desolate streets. For his famous photograph "Interior of Sikandra Bagh", therefore, Beato tried a radically different tactic. Historians believe this photograph was completely staged. Beato had his assistants exhume dozens of Indian corpses and pose them to form the foreground you see in the image.
There’s a Hindi expression ‘gade murde ukhaadana’, which means, literally, ‘to dig up the dead’ means to dredge up long-forgotten things or phenomena. Beato’s literalization of this phrase might be gruesome, but it is the kind of detail that enhances the historic significance of a work of art. The photograph is part of ‘Touching Light’, an exhibition celebrating Indian and India-centric analog photography, hosted by Gurgaon’s Museo Camera and curated by its founder Aditya Arya.