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| Madras Sappers & Miners, Lucknow, Felice Beato, albumen print, 1857-58, 164 x 200 mm A tinted photograph of a group of four armed soldiers in uniform in front of the Jal Pari Gateway in the Qaisar Bagh complex. ‘C’ Company of Madras Sappers & Miners joined Sir Colin Campbell in the second relief of Lucknow in November 1857. |
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Felice Beato was one of the pioneering photographers who captured the aftermath of the Uprising in 1857, having begun his career in the Middle East in the early 1850’s. His in-depth and relentless pursuit of photography in India commenced immediately after his documentation of the Crimean War in 1856, marking the beginning of a career in ‘war photography.’ Beato was drawn to the subcontinent after the ‘rebellion’ broke out in May 1857, but only arrived in early 1858, following a brief stopover in Calcutta. The astounding photos seen here, are insights into the ranks of the British Indian army stationed in Lucknow, through the genre of portraiture. They visualise the so-called victors of the brutal events, who forcibly took over ‘rebel’ towns and cities, including Kanpur and Delhi.
When Beato arrived in Lucknow, he was introduced to Colin Campbell, Commander-in-chief of the British forces. Campbell eventually retained some of his images that were eventually used in a text by the first war correspondent from the London Times, William Howard Russell. As photographs could not be reproduced in magazines and newspapers as half tones until the 1880’s, Swedish artist, Egron Lundgren, copied Felice’s images. Egron used the images as subjects for his own reproductions in Russell’s epic account of 1857 entitled My Diary in India, published in 1860. With this in mind, we are able to perceive Felice’s works of as an aesthetic endeavour, conditioned for painterly effect with astounding compositional dexterity. The tinted photograph of a Sikh soldier reproduced here is fascinating example.
Felice Beato was in fact, a commercial photographer with a studio in Calcutta, run for the most part by his brother, Antonio. His livelihood was derived from selling images to potential buyers, and so, with time, they were circulated among the British regency and community, as iconic images of the victorious suppression of Indian ‘mutineers.’ Subsequently, Beato’s remarkable passion for images of battle and peripatetic lifestyle, led him to Hong-Kong to document the Anglo-Chinese War in 1860. After several other assignments in Japan and Sudan, he reached Burma in 1889, where he resided until his death in c.1907.
 | | Steamboat shaped as a fish, and the nawab’s pinnace, The Sultan of Oude at the Bara Chattar Manzil, albumen print, 1858, 247 x 302 mmCompany of Madras Sappers & Miners joined Sir Colin Campbell in the second relief of Lucknow in November 1857. |
 | A group of British soldiers, Lucknow, Felice Beato, albumen print, 1857-58, 220 x 293 mm.
Posing in front of the Jal Pari gateway in the Qaisar Bagh complex are a group of British officers, six of who have been identified. Capt. Wheeler (6th from left), Sergeant Magin (seated on Wheelers right), Lt. Hall (standing in the door dressed in white), W. H. Warner (seated in the door), Mr. Cavenah (seated in front of Warner), Lt. Maxwell, Adjudant of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers (third from right). |
 | | A group of five Sikh Soldiers, Lucknow, Felice Beato, Albumen print, 1857-58, 183 x 143 mm A group of five armed Sikh soldiers in front of the Jal Pari gateway in the Qaisar Bagh complex. Sikh soldiers of the Punjab remained loyal to the British throughout the Uprising and actively participated in breaking the siege at the Residency 120 and the retaking of Lucknow. |
 | | A Sikh Soldier of Hodson’s Horse, Lucknow, Felice Beato, albumen print, 1857-58, 194 x 133mm. A tinted photograph showing a loyal Sikh soldier in front of a horse- drawn covered cart. His turban and waist sash made of Kashmir shawls was in all probability, part of the loot from the sacking of the Qaisar Bagh complex. Hodson’s Horse from the Khalsa State Force was one of the last to join the ‘irregular’ army of the British. |
Images and Text Courtesy:
Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi |
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