Mahmud Gawan Madrasa, Bidar (c. 1890): Art, History and Details

Mahmud Gawan Madrasa, Bidar (c. 1890) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Raja Deen Dayal (Indian, 1844–1905).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The architectural decoration on the tower echoes patterns on Bidri ware (see CMA 2020.206), ornamented metallic vessels cast from condensed vapors of zinc in a technique native to that city. This image is notable for the precision and poetry with which the people are posed. Most gaze at the camera, probably instructed to do so by Deen Dayal; this is rarely the case in images by foreign photographers.

Object facts

• Title: Mahmud Gawan Madrasa, Bidar
• Date: c. 1890
• Creator attribution: Raja Deen Dayal (Indian, 1844–1905)
• Culture: India
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print
• Dimensions: Paper: 26 x 19.7 cm (10 1/4 x 7 3/4 in.); Mounted: 32.7 x 25.5 cm (12 7/8 x 10 1/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - Misc. 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2024.81

A detail from the museum

Built in 1472 as an Islamic theological college, in 1656 gunpowder stored in it ignited and gutted the building.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.