Upper Bala Hissar, from West (1878–80): Art, History and Details

Upper Bala Hissar, from West (1878–80) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John Burke (Irish, 1845–1915).

The work and its context

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

The subject of this album is the Second Anglo-Afghan War, which was fought from 1878 to 1880. John Burke was the first photographer to photograph extensively in Afghanistan and the main photographer covering that conflict. The technology of the day did not permit action shots of battles. As is usual for early conflict photography, the pictures are landscapes of the sites of momentous incidents, views of camps and civil and military infrastructure, and portraits of the soldiers and their leaders.

Object facts

• Title: Upper Bala Hissar, from West
• Date: 1878–80
• Creator attribution: John Burke (Irish, 1845–1915)
• Culture: Ireland
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print
• Collection: PH - Misc. 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2024.6.xx

A detail from the museum

This album includes some of the earliest photographs of Afghanistan.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Whitehill Art Purchase Endowment 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.