Monuments

The British presence in India before the invention of the photography was used by British artists to document and make painting of the monuments and the landscape of the vast land represented by India and its cultures.

Starting with William Hodges in 1780, a stream of artists, the most famous of the British artists. Thomas and William Daniel who between 1756 and 1794 traveled the subcontinent and sketched views in six volumes of Oriental Scenery. In 1847 the Royal Asiatic Society found a commission to document the temples of western India. In 1847 the East India Company had adopted the use of photography with Captain Biggs who made paper negatives of Bijapur, Badami and other places. Similarly the Madras Residency appointed Linnaeus Tripe a photographer and he photographed the temple architecture of Srirangam, Tiruchirapally, Tanjavur and Madurai. In 1870 the Archeological survey of India took up photography to document the various historical places and temples in India.