Pugahm Myo: Thapinyu Pagoda

Inscription: Artist's "BY THEE I DRAW" blind stamp on mount, recto TC; signed by the artist in black ink on print, recto BRC: "L. Tripe"; letterpress in black ink on white paper affixed to mount, recto BC: "No. 15. Pugahm Myo. Thapinyu Pagoda. // Or "the Omniscient." It is about 230 feet high; divided into two stages, each stage into two stories. An arched corridor passes round each stage, with arched doorways opening outwards; opposite those on // the ground story are sitting figures of Gautama. In the centre of each side of the lower stage, is a projecting wing with a lofty doorway, opening into a vestibule: this forms a centre porch to the Corridor a // collosal seated figure of Gautama facing it. The centre of the building is a solid mass of Masonry terminated by a bulging pyramidal spire crowned by a tree. Its date is about 1100 A. D."; [no inscriptions or annotations on verso]

Linnaeus Tripe; presented to Jame Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie and Governor-General of India, by February 21, 1857; by descent through Broun-Ramsay family; (sold Sotheby's London, May 9, 2012, lot 211); [Hans P. Kraus, Jr. Inc., New York]

Cat. no. 9 in Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860.

The negative for this image is held in the Royal Photographic Society Collection of the National Media Museum (RPS:21650)

The portfolio from which 2012.323.1–.30 came was unknown at the time of the publication of Dewan's catalogue raisonné (2003).

The original portfolio wrapper for this group of photographs is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Linnaeus Tripe began to photograph in Britain in the early 1850s, while on leave from his post as an officer in the 12th Madras Infantry. Soon after he returned to India in 1854 he was appointed by Lord Dalhousie, Governor General of India, as an “Artist in Photography” to accompany a mission to the court of Ava, Burma. In thirty days of actual shooting between August and November 1855, Tripe made well over 200 large format paper negatives, from which 120 were selected to be printed in an edition of fifty. The present group comes from a set presented to Lord Dalhousie by Tripe in February 1857.

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852–1860," September 21, 2014–January 4, 2015.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852–1860," February 18–May 25, 2015.

Victoria and Albert Museum. "Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852–1860," June 23–October 11, 2015.

Dewan, Janet. The Photographs of Linnaeus Tripe: A Catalogue Raisonné. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2003. pp. 205–312.