Artwork Page for End of the Defile, Looking Back at Ali Musjid

Details / Information for End of the Defile, Looking Back at Ali Musjid

Series Title: Afghanistan, February 1880

End of the Defile, Looking Back at Ali Musjid

1878–80

John Burke

(Irish, 1845–1915)
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Culture
Ireland
Medium
albumen print
Credit Line
Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Whitehill Art Purchase Endowment Fund 2024.6.q
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

This album includes some of the earliest photographs of Afghanistan.

Description

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.
An albumen print captures a sepia-toned landscape where craggy, dark brown cliffs squeeze a narrow river. On the left, a figure with a medium-dark skin tone stands on a pebbled, tan bank. Further back, another person with similar skin tone wades through blurred, gray-white water. Deep shadows texture the steep stone walls that frame the scene, leading towards a pale, hazy sky that washes over the distant rocky peaks.

End of the Defile, Looking Back at Ali Musjid

1878–80

John Burke

(Irish, 1845–1915)
Ireland

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