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Elysium Hill, from Luckree Bazaar, Simla.
Bourne, Samuel, born 1834 - died 1912 - Enlarge image
Elysium Hill, from Luckree Bazaar, Simla.; Simla
- Object:
Photograph
- Place of origin:
India (photographed)
- Date:
1863 (photographed)
- Artist/Maker:
Bourne, Samuel, born 1834 - died 1912 (Photographer)
- Materials and Techniques:
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
- Museum number:
52:819
- Gallery location:
In Storage
The British photographer Samuel Bourne arrived in India in January 1863. He travelled from Calcutta and set up his base in the northern hill station of Simla. He wrote about his travels in the British Journal of photography and of his first impressions of Simla he noted:
I must confess to disappointment on my first view of Simla. A mass of apparently tumble-down native dwellings on the top of a ridge, with bungalows scattered here and there on the sides of a mountain covered partially with fir trees, without a single yard of level cultivated land – such was the appearance of Simla at five miles’ distance, and I naturally began to wonder where I would find the series of views for which I had undertaken this long journey. All the snow had not yet (March 1st) disappeared from the top of Jakko, which is 8000 feet above the sea, and on which the English love of pure air has induced them to build their houses, even to the very summit.
A further acquaintance with Simla has not altogether banished the disappointment it first gave me, yet it is not to be condemned. If has afforded me a considerable number of pictures of a certain class, while as regards the climate, nothing could be finer….
Bourne, S, A Photographic journey through the Higher Himalayas, The British Journal of Photography, 1 September 1863, Pg 345
