Elliot Marbles, Sculpture 109

Captain Linnaeus Tripe made this photograph at the end of a two-year tour of the Madras Presidency, one of three provinces of India under British colonial rule. This photograph was part of a survey of the sculptures excavated by the antiquarian Walker Elliott from the ruined Buddhist stupa (or domed structure) at Amaravati. The Madras Government ordered seventy copies of the resulting album Photographs of the Elliot Marbles, which includes this image. They were sold to the public as well as distributed to civil servants, government offices, libraries, and academic institutions. Photographs like this one met Tripe’s charge to “secure before they disappear the objects in the presidency that are interesting to the antiquary, architect, sculptor, mythologist, and historian.”

Image Caption

Linnaeus Tripe, Elliot Marbles, Sculpture 109, 1858, albumenized salt print. Clark Art Institute, gift of Fernando and Gloria Barnuevo Ybarra, 2001.15.1