Pugahm Myo: Distant View of Gauda-palen Pagoda
August 20–24, 1855
Medium
Albumen silver print from waxed(?) paper negative
Dimensions
Image: 25.3 x 34.1 cm (9 15/16 x 13 7/16 in.) Mount: 45.6 x 58.3 cm (17 15/16 x 22 15/16 in.) Mat: 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, The Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach, Directors, and Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2012
Accession Number
2012.323.8
Tags
Art Historical Context
Linnaeus Tripe’sPugahm Myo: Distant View of Gauda-palen Pagoda” offers a serene glimpse of Burma’s ancient landscape in 1855. Created during Tripe’s official expedition as a British army officer and pioneering photographer, the image captures the monumental Gauda-palen Pagoda amid rolling terrain and distant mountains. At a time when few Western viewers had seen these sites, Tripe’s work helped document the architectural splendor and ruins of Bagan for both scholarly and public audiences. The photograph is an albumen silver print made from a waxed paper negative, a technique that allowed for ...
About the Artist
Linnaeus Tripe
Linnaeus Tripe (1822–1902), born in Devonport, England, as the ninth of twelve children to Mary and Cornelius Tripe, pursued a military career influenced by his sister Emily's marriage to an army colonel. Joining the East India Company's Madras Infantry as a cadet in 1838, he rose to lieutenant in southern India by 1840 and captain in Bangalore by 1854. Extended leave in England from 1850 due to i...