Cleveland Museum of Art
His Eminence Commander in Chief and Party, Shimla
Raja Deen DayalLinkedCulture matchlcp-900fe823d6cd
- Date
- 1887
- Medium
- albumen print
- Culture
- India
- Department
- Photography
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 290406
In 1887 Deen Dayal was appointed photographer to the commander in chief of the British Indian Army, Field Marshal Frederick Roberts (1832–1914) (seated, third from left). This casually dressed group of Roberts’s family and friends had just enjoyed a week of formal events, including a “fancy dress” ball celebrating the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne. That party inaugurated a ballroom built onto Roberts’s home. The following day, Roberts was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire. The tiger skin attests to British success at big game hunting. Its use as a rug reveals a very different attitude toward this favored pastime among the British than the Indians, for whom it symbolized royal power.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Provenance
- 1887 or 1888: Studio of Raja Deen Dayal, sold to commissioner (identity unknown) | 1970s–2015: Walter Clode [1929–2022], Pershore, England, sold or consigned to Prahlad Bubbar Indian and Islamic Art, London, England | 2015–16: (Prahlad Bubbar Indian and Islamic Art, London, England), sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH | December 5, 2016–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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