Gezicht op de Ganges before 1867

This is Thomas George Glover's photograph, "Gezicht op de Ganges," likely made with albumen prints on paper. Photography, invented not long before Glover took this shot, was both art and science. The albumen process itself was painstaking. Paper was coated with egg whites, then sensitized with silver nitrate. The resulting print, as we see here, has a characteristic soft, sepia tone and a high level of detail. But consider the social context. Glover, a colonial administrator, likely employed local labor to assist with the photographic process. The image itself, while seemingly neutral, is also a product of British expansion. The Ganges, a sacred river, is here presented as a picturesque landscape, ready for Western consumption. So, even in this seemingly straightforward image, we see the complex interplay of materials, labor, and imperial power. It reminds us that no artwork is ever truly separate from the world in which it was made.