The Inner Facade of the Gateway of the East Gopuram 1858

Linnaeus Tripe made this albumen silver print of the Inner Facade of the Gateway of the East Gopuram, likely in the 1850s. Tripe was among a generation of photographers who turned their lenses to the monuments of India. What do we make of this image? British photographers had complex relationships with the cultures they depicted. In this period, the British Empire was expanding its reach and consolidating its power, using photography to categorize the people and places under its control. Tripe’s photograph of the Gopuram can be read as a record of architectural and cultural heritage; at the same time, the artist’s position as a British photographer, employed by the British East India Company, reminds us of the power dynamics at play. Historians use photographs like these, alongside other historical records, to better understand the complex relationship between photography, colonialism, and cultural representation.