Linnaeus Tripe

Collection of Miss Agnes Cheetham

Collection of the Astley Cheetham Public Library, Stalybridge, Tameside (bequest of the above’s estate, circa 1931)

Withdrawn from the Tameside Public Libraries, Stalybridge, 1976

Private collection (acquired from the above)

By descent to the present owner

Janet Dewan, The Photographs of Linnaeus Tripe: A Catalogue Raisonné (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2003), pp. 368-69, 391-95, and 397-400

One of the most important photographic innovators of the nineteenth century, Captain Linnaeus Tripe inarguably made the finest photographs of India from this period. Whether of sweeping landscapes, dazzling architectural details, or notable monuments, his images are often highly stylized, and his use of light and shade remarkably accomplished. The rare examples of Tripe’s photographs that remain in excellent condition, including the albums here offered in Lots 76-78, reveal him to be a master of photographic printing. 

Born to a prominent family in Devon, England, Tripe began his military career in 1839 with the East India Company Army, eventually attaining the rank of Captain. An early interest in photography emerged by 1851, and his first major photographic work was undertaken while in Burma in 1855. Owing to his success with this project, Tripe was appointed the official Government Photographer for the Madras Presidency in 1856, a post he held for four years. In this capacity, he journeyed across hundreds of miles to the major urban areas under the Presidency’s jurisdiction, with a goal to document the natural landmarks, celebrated monuments, and religious architecture “before they disappear” (Dewan, p. 9).

Out of several hundred negatives, a select number of images were ordered for printing and published in a series of albums organized according to geographic region. Although the project proved highly successful—aesthetically and historically broadening the views of its audience—it was a financial disaster, and Tripe’s photographic establishment was disbanded by the government in 1860. While it is not known definitively how many albums were originally produced, documents from the period suggest fewer than 40 copies of Photographic Views of Trichinopoly were made.  

The album offered here comes originally from the collection of the Cheetham family, of which a “Miss Agnes Cheetham” is noted on the album's interior label. Although little is known of Agnes (c. 1833-1931), her family lineage is well documented. She was the daughter of John Cheetham (1802-1886), a Liberal Member of Parliament in the 1850s-60s and a prosperous cotton manufacturer in Stalybridge, a town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Her brother John Frederick Cheetham (1835-1916) and his wife Beatrice Astley built The Stalybridge Public Library as a gift to their town in 1901. As John Frederick and Beatrice had no children, the Astley Cheetham art collection was bequeathed to Agnes and later to the town of Stalybridge upon her death. 

How these albums were acquired by the Cheetham family remains an interesting mystery. Between 1860 and 1865, a select number of Tripe albums were acquired by governments, institutions, and individuals, including a “F. Cheetham, Esq.” (see Dewan, p. 126). Detailing the Exhibition of the Madras Photographic Society of 1860, The Madras Journal of Literature and Science (1861) provides further details worthy of consideration:

“This valuable series was collected by an English gentleman of taste, F. Cheetham, Esq., who is now travelling in the East and who kindly lent his portfolio for two or three days, and made some extensive purchases of Photographs taken in this Presidency by Captain Tripe. . .” (p. 192).

Given the Cheetham family’s cotton business, it is certainly plausible that John Frederick Cheetham would have travelled to India and that he may indeed be the aforementioned “F. Cheetham, Esq.” At the time of Janet Dewan’s extraordinary 2003 catalogue raisonné, no further information was known about this individual and the present album was not recorded in Dewan's census. Dewan records only 8 surviving intact copies, all but one in institutional collections.

The plates in this album are as follows, with location in brackets and Tripe catalogue raisonné numbers in parentheses:

1. [Trichinopoly] The bridge from the north bank of the Kaveri (CR6-44)

2. [Trichinopoly] Ghats Near the S. End of the Bridge (CR6-47)

3. [Trichinopoly] The Rock Through a Gap in the Fort Wall on the W. Side (CR6-49)

4. [Trichinopoly] View of the Rock from the East (CR6-52)

5. [Trichinopoly] Entrance to the Steps, Leading up to the Pagoda on the Rock, Looking Towards the Street (CR6-59)

6. [Trichinopoly] Part of the Palace in the Fort (CR6-63)

7. [Trichinopoly] Street View—Rock in the Distance (CR6-64)

8. [Trichinopoly] Musjid of Nutter Auleah (CR6-65)

9. [Trichinopoly] Wallajah’s Tomb in the Nutter Auleah Musjid (CR6-66)