Hospitaal aan de kust 1843

Christian Rosenberg made this print of the Bombay Native Hospital, sometime around the mid-19th century. It depicts the facade of a hospital constructed under British colonial rule in India. The print serves as both a portrait of a building and a document of colonial power. Hospitals such as this were framed as acts of benevolence, but they also reveal the intertwined nature of care and control. For whom was this hospital really built, and under what conditions? What forms of medical knowledge were privileged in such a setting? The very term “Native Hospital” draws a line, implicitly defining who belongs and who is other. Notice the solitary figure in the foreground; is she approaching the hospital or departing it? Her presence invites us to consider individual experiences within broader colonial structures. The hospital on the coast becomes more than just a building; it's a site of complex social relations and individual stories.