Photograph by Samuel Bourne of the Gateway to Husainabad, Lucknow, India, about 1866

Photograph illustrating detailed architecture of the monumental gateway to Hoosainabad (Husainabad). It was built in 1784 and is generally referred to as the Rumi Darwaza. In front local stall holders sell a variety of food and wood.

Samuel Bourne (1834-1912) left his job as a bank clerk in Nottingham to become a professional photographer, and in 1863 sailed to India to develop his new career. He remained there for several years to become recognised as one of the most successful British photographers to document the expanding British empire. His photographs were produced primarily for the European market, and provided a glimpse of India as a distant colonised land and its people. Bourne's photographic success was a combination of his impressive photographic skill and ability to present photographs of India that co-incided with the western, Orientalist vision of the exotic East. In 1870 Bourne took up permanent residency in England and withdrew from photography after establishing a cotton-doubling mill. In 1896 after retiring from business he devoted his time to watercolour painting.

In 1863 Samuel Bourne gave up his job as a bank clerk and went to India. He became one of the most successful photographers to document the expanding British Empire. Here he shows the ornate 18th-century gateway in Lucknow, known as the Rumi Darwaza (Turkish Gateway). Another British visitor wrote in 1858 that this was the most spectacular cityscape that he had ever seen.

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