Felice Beato was a British photographer of Italian origin. He travelled through India after the so-called ‘mutiny’ or uprising of the Indian army against their British officers in 1857. Beato took photographs of sites associated with the uprising, as well as more general photographs of the most important monuments of the cities he visited, as in this example.

This photograph shows the external view of the colonnade of pillars that make up the east side of the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, south of Delhi. Built between 1193 and 1199, this is the earliest extant mosque in India. It was built on the site of the captured Rajput citadel of Qila Rai Pithora as a symbol of victory by Qutbuddin Aibak (d.1210), the military commander of the Afghan Ghurid dynasty who defeated the last Hindu ruler of Delhi and sought to establish Islam in this newly acquired territory. The mosque consists of a simple rectangle enclosing a central quadrangle measuring 43.2 by 33 metres. Three sides of the mosque have pillared colonnades built using the remains of 27 demolished Hindu and Jain temples, a fact recorded on the main eastern entrance to the mosque.

The east side of the colonnade is three pillars deep (the north and south side being two pillars deep). The Hindu and Jain iconography on the pillars is clearly visible, showing lotus flowers, scrolling foliage and kalasa or vessels overflowing with flowering creepers – a Brahmanical motif signifying abundance and overflowing prosperity.