Perumal Temple Vimana from Corner of Court, Madurai (1858): Art, History and Details

Perumal Temple Vimana from Corner of Court, Madurai (1858) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Captain Linnaeus Tripe (British, 1822–1902).

The work and its context

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

Although the temple would have been crowded with worshippers, Tripe shows us empty spaces. His paper negatives and primitive lens required long exposures, even in the bright sunlight of India—too long to record an individual in motion. Tripe, photographing for the colonial government, may also have used his official status to have the temple cleared of visitors so he could obtain unobstructed views of the architecture.

Object facts

• Title: Perumal Temple Vimana from Corner of Court, Madurai
• Date: 1858
• Creator attribution: Captain Linnaeus Tripe (British, 1822–1902)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print from a waxed paper negative
• Dimensions: Image: 34.2 x 26.8 cm (13 7/16 x 10 9/16 in.); Paper: 34.2 x 26.8 cm (13 7/16 x 10 9/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2020.209

A detail from the museum

The architecture was probably painted with bright colors, but Linnaeus Tripe’s photographic technology captured only a monochromatic range of tones.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Dewan, Janet, and Linnaeus Tripe. The Photographs of Linnaeus Tripe: A Catalogue Raisonné. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2003.

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.