Picnic Party at Mr. Peliti's Country House, Mashobra (1887): Art, History and Details

Picnic Party at Mr. Peliti's Country House, Mashobra (1887) 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:

This scene is from one of many lavish entertainments hosted by local caterer, restaurateur, and hotelier Federico Peliti (Italian, 1844–1914) at his forested country estate outside Shimla. In the photograph, Peliti is on horseback and his wife Judith is on the swing. Swings have a long history as items of leisurely pleasure in Europe and India. Badminton, which originated in England in 1873, was popular in India. Deen Dayal may have been invited to document this gathering because he and Peliti, an amateur photographer, both belonged to the Photographic Society of Bombay.

Object facts

• Title: Picnic Party at Mr. Peliti's Country House, Mashobra
• Date: 1887
• Creator attribution: Raja Deen Dayal (Indian, 1844–1905)
• Culture: India
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print
• Dimensions: Image: 18.9 x 27.7 cm (7 7/16 x 10 7/8 in.); Paper: 18.9 x 27.7 cm (7 7/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
• Collection: PH - Misc. 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2016.266.11

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.