One for the royal album

The author gets a glimpse of aristocratic life in the 19th century through the lens of Raja Deen Dayal

“The cameras were primitive in operation, but with complete mastery over them he produced photographs of superb technical quality... Even after 100 years, Raja Deen Dayal will be remembered as a master camera artist whose style of picture-making has remained unsurpassed.”

That was veteran photographer T Kasinath writing about his legendary 19th century predecessor in a newsletter of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) during an exhibition of Deen Dayal’s work in the early 1990s. IGNCA possesses close to 3,000 glass plate negatives of photographs taken by Raja Deen Dayal, and, for the first time, over 150 of these will be on view in Bangalore.

Listening to the phonograph: Seen here are Deen Dayal, Ghalib Jung and friends at Hyderabad on May 22, 1891. In a rare instance, the camera records un-posed, natural exuberance, which was normally curtailed and seldom seen in 19th century photography

Raja Deen Dayal is considered a chronicler of life in the 19th century, especially of royalty, many of whom commissioned him to capture their portraits. Born into a Jain family in 1844, he became a “Raja” when the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad conferred on him the grandiose title of “Musawwir Jung Raja Bahadur” or “Bold Warrior of Photography” in 1892. Five years earlier, he had received what would have been an even more coveted appointment — the Royal Warrant naming him photographer to Queen Victoria. His eye for detail had also led to commissions from the Archaeological Survey of India, apart from which he worked with Sir Lepel Henry Griffin, an administrator and diplomat, to document the country’s architectural heritage. During the course of this assignment, he photographed numerous forts and palaces, such as the impressive Gwalior fort.

Deen Dayal had started his career as an engineer and draughtsman with the public works department in Indore, where he was introduced to photography. He mastered the medium by the time he was 30 and his work brought him to the notice of the maharaja of Indore who, in turn, introduced him to the British agent, Henry Daly. Commissions to photograph royalty, viceroys and similar assignments followed. During his stint in the royal court at Hyderabad, he also established a zenana studio, for “Native Ladies only,” headed by a Mrs Kenny Levick.

Portrait of a Maratha lady (1890): This portrait shows the use of a single glass plate for multiple exposures, producing two or more images to a plate. Depending on the subject’s preference, either one or both images could be printed or enlarged

His equipment, as Kasinath says, was indeed primitive, consisting of large bellows cameras and glass plate negatives from which prints were taken. But it was equipment he nearly knew how to use to the best effect, as his impressive oeuvre shows. Deen Dayal’s glass plate negatives, acquired from his descendants, as well his photographic equipment, are now with IGNCA. Conservation concerns prevent the original prints developed at the time of the acquisition from being displayed — instead the exhibition will have digital reproductions of the negatives.

The current exhibition will include photographs of royalty, palaces, forts and other vignettes of life in the 19th century. One of the criteria for selecting images had been that each should reflect “a certain degree of aesthetic, subjective, performative or double entendre layering”, considered the essence of Deen Dayal’s work, according to Vikram Sampath, executive director of IGNCA’s Southern Regional Centre.

The exhibition will be inaugurated by historian and author Ramachandra Guha at 5.30 pm on June 21 and will be on view till July 20 at NGMA, Manikyavelu Mansion, Palace Road, Bangalore