[Old Burial Ground, Dum Dum, Calcutta]
1850s
![[Old Burial Ground, Dum Dum, Calcutta] by Unknown](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/met/ph/thumb/old-burial-ground-dum-dum-calcutta-287789.webp)
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
Image: 16.1 x 20.9 cm (6 5/16 x 8 1/4 in.) Mount: 27.5 x 23.2 cm (10 13/16 x 9 1/8 in.) Print mounted vertically.
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.948.1 (32a)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the shadowy serenity of the *Old Burial Ground, Dum, Calcutta*, a poignant albumen silver print from 1850s, now housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Gilman Collection. Captured at 16.1 x 20.9 cm on a larger mount, this photograph depicts a colonial-era cemetery near Kolkata (then Calcutta), a hub of British India. The unknown photographer masterfully frames weathered tombs and overgrown grounds, evoking the passage of time amid the empire's expanding footprint. Albumen silver prints, the gold standard of mid-19th-century photography, were made by coating paper with egg whites ...
About the Artist
Unknown
The artist designated as "Unknown" in our virtual museum's collection exemplifies a poignant chapter in art history: creators whose identities have faded into obscurity despite the enduring power of their work. With only one known artwork attributed to them in our holdings, this figure represents countless anonymous hands that shaped visual culture across centuries. Museums worldwide, including th...