War of Independence – 1857

Fall 2022

On the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of India’s Independence, TAG brings to you a rare collection of images from the Uprising of 1857. With a publication already released at the Science Museum (UK) on the subject, published by the Alkazi Collection of Photography and Mapin in 2018, we present to you, a fresh curation of images of the ‘sepoy revolt’, as one of the first photographed wars in the history of documentary photography in India, following the Crimean War.

This exhibition offers unique images of the ‘Ghadar’ or Uprising of 1857, together with images from the personal album of John Nicholas Tressider (a civil surgeon working in Kanpur), and in doing so makes us re-consider the grand narratives associated with colonial historiography and image production.

Using rare archival photographs from the Alkazi Collection, together with supplementary visual material, this exhibition re-evaluates the idea of ‘evidence’ and official reading of the Uprising.

We see several ‘Mutiny’ landscapes and architecture: the internal dynamic of the rebellion decoded through topography and monuments, including memorials, cemeteries, churches and forts, as well as the sites of appalling atrocity and retribution and include sites and narratives associated with the warrior queen Lakshmi Bai, the exiled last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and the poet Mirza Ghalib.

  • John Nicholas Tresidder, ‘Joala Persad’ from the Tresidder Album, 1859, Albumen Print

  • Felice Beato, Shahi Masjid, Lucknow ‘Part of the Enemy’s Entrenchments. Showing a Breach made at the Capture of Lucknow’ from the Brooks Album, 1858, Albumen Print

  • T.A. Rust, Art Photographer, Allahabad, Mussoorie, Landour & Meerut; British Photoprint Co, London, ‘The Memorial, Delhi’, c. 1903, Phototype Postcard

  • ‘Assault of Delhi—Capture of the Cashmere Gate’ from the book The History of the Indian Mutiny by Charles Ball, 1857, Engraving on Steel

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