Untitled (verso) (1880s): Art, History and Details

Untitled (verso) (1880s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Skeen & Co. (British, active 1860–1920); Charles T. Scowen (British).

The work and its context

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

Probably taken by one of two British photographic firms based in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), this image was likely shot by a European and was definitely made for a European audience, not for the individuals depicted. It is unlikely the sitters ever saw the finished photograph. Such ethnographic portraits were collected by governments as information, by tourists as souvenirs, and by “armchair travelers” as aids to the imagination. Viewers of the era would have regarded it more as a depiction of a cultural type than as a record of individual lives. Because interiors of temples were too dark to yield an image, the photographer arranged these Thai monks and worshippers along with some of their religious objects outdoors.

Object facts

• Title: Untitled (verso)
• Date: 1880s
• Creator attribution: Skeen & Co. (British, active 1860–1920); Charles T. Scowen (British)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: Albumen print, gold-toned
• Dimensions: Image: 20.2 x 26.7 cm (7 15/16 x 10 1/2 in.); Mounted: 27.8 x 37.9 cm (10 15/16 x 14 15/16 in.); Secondary image: 20.5 x 26.3 cm (8 1/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2015.32.b

Collection credit

Purchased with funds donated by Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Barbara Timmer

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.