West and South Sides of the Vimana Walls, Great Temple (Brihadeshvara) at Tanjore (Thanjavur) (1858): Art, History and Details

West and South Sides of the Vimana Walls, Great Temple (Brihadeshvara) at Tanjore (Thanjavur) (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:

The double-storied exterior base of one of the largest temples constructed and still standing on the Indian subcontinent is articulated with niches containing images of Hindu gods. Within these walls is an inner sanctum containing a monolithic linga (the phallic emblem marking the sacred presence of the god Shiva). Tripe used waxed paper instead of glass negatives, possibly because he was concerned about breakage and weight. When printing the photograph, he laid the negative on a paper treated with a light-sensitive emulsion of sodium chloride (table salt) and silver nitrate and exposed it to light, to create a “salt print.”

Object facts

• Title: West and South Sides of the Vimana Walls, Great Temple (Brihadeshvara) at Tanjore (Thanjavur)
• Date: 1858
• Creator attribution: Captain Linnaeus Tripe (British, 1822–1902)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumenized salt print from a waxed paper negative
• Dimensions: Image: 27.4 x 36 cm (10 13/16 x 14 3/16 in.); Paper: 27.4 x 36 cm (10 13/16 x 14 3/16 in.); Mounted: 45.3 x 57.3 cm (17 13/16 x 22 9/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2020.210

A detail from the museum

This is thought to have been the tallest structure in the world when it was constructed around 1000.

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.