{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1375804"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1375804/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017KC4839/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017KC4839/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2017KC4839","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1375804/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1375804","accessionNumber":"52883","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"View from Taree Pass, Spiti range","type":"assigned by artist"},{"title":"Taree Pass","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"In 1863 Samuel Bourne (1834-1912) arrived in India. He had left his job as a Nottingham bank clerk in order to develop a new career as a photographer. Bourne undertook three treks to Kashmir and the western Himalayas in 1863, 1864 and 1866, during which he photographed his surroundings extensively. His first trip began in July 1863 following a well-established route going east from Simla, towards the India-Tibet border, and into the Sutlej Valley below the Himalayan mountains.\r\n\r\nThroughout his travels Bourne wrote about his first impressions of the places he visited and these writings were published in the British Journal of Photography. His reaction to spectacle of the Taree Pass was one of awe. He noted: “I was anxious to see a little more of those mighty Himalayas before returning to Simla. Getting, therefore, some information from a surveyor I met with near Cheenee, I struck across the mountains in a westerly direction to reach the “Taree Pass” leading into a country called Spiti. I crossed two or three ranges of great elevation, from which I had magnificent views of the wondrous region around me. What a mighty upbearing of mountains! What an endless vista of gigantic ranges and valleys, untold and unknown! Peak rose above peak, summit above summit, range above and beyond range, innumerable and boundless, until the mind refused to follow the eye in its attempt to comprehend the whole in one grand conception. When at an elevation on one occasion of about 14,000 feet, the gloom of night began to steal suddenly o’er the landscape, which seemed to heighten the ponderousness of the huge masses around me, and give them an aspect peculiarly solemn and impressive. It was impossible to gaze on this tumultuous sea of mountains without being deeply affected with their terrible majesty and awful grandeur, without an elevation of the soul’s capacities, and without a silent uplifting of the heart to Him who formed such stupendous works, whose eye alone has scanned the dread depths of their sunless recesses, and whose presence only has rested on their mysterious and sublime elevations; and it must be set down to the credit of photography that it teaches the mind to see the beauty and power of such scenes as these, and renders it more susceptible of their sweet and elevating impressions. For my own part, I may say that before I commenced photography I did not see half the beauties in nature that I do now, and the glory and power of a precious landscape has often passed before me and left but a feeble impression on my untutored mind; but it will never be so again. … The Pass, as I have before stated, was filled with an enormous glacier; and around the base of the peaks which rose from it as from a platform, the snow lay in great wave-like masses, rounded and smoothed by the strong and fierce beating of the blast. …Everything wore an air of the wildest solitude and the most profound desolation, and while I looked upon it I almost shuddered with awe at the terrific dreariness of the scene.” Bourne, S, Ten Weeks with the Camera in the Himalayas, The British Journal of Photography, 15 January 1864, p.69\r\n\r\nTowards the end of the 1860s, Bourne established a partnership with fellow photographer and Englishman Charles Shepherd (fl. 1858-1878) and in the space of a few years Bourne & Shepherd became the pre-eminent photographic firm in India. By the end of 1870 they had three branches, in Simla, Calcutta and Bombay.\r\n\r\nSamuel Bourne’s ability to combine technical skill and artistic vision has led to him being recognised today as one of the most outstanding photographers working in India in the nineteenth century.\r\n","physicalDescription":"Photograph showing a flat area of rocky ground between mountains. There is a snowy mountain range in the distance.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Bourne, Samuel","id":"A8171"},"association":{"text":"photographer","id":"x43821"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[],"techniques":[{"text":"wet collodion process","id":"AAT133299"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Albumen print from wet collodion negative","categories":[{"text":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"SSEA","id":"THES48598"},"images":["2017KC4839"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"004","id":"THES403840"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"India","id":"x29790"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1863","earliest":"1863-01-01","latest":"1863-12-31"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"23.1","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"photograph","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"29","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"photograph","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"27","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"mount","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"32.2","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"mount","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Signature and negative number in bottom left hand corner","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"This photograph was initially part of the photographic collection held in the National Art Library. The markings on the mount are an indication of the history of the object, its movement through the museum and the way it is categorised. The mount is white. Bottom Left: Label from Bourne catalogue and some handwritten text.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph, 'View from Taree Pass, Spiti range', albumen print, Samuel Bourne, India, 1860s","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"The negative was made in 1863. This print was made before March 1867.","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[{"text":"India","id":"x29790"}],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["52883"],"accessionNumberNum":"52883","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"Negative number","id":"THES50273"},"number":"281"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-16","recordCreationDate":"2017-01-05","availableToBook":true}}