India, 1864, 
Samuel Bourne

The Englishman Samuel Bourne is known as one of the finest travel and landscape photographers of 19th century India. This image, taken in the summer of 1864 during Bourne’s second major trip photographing in the Kashmir region, shows the town of Srinagar as seen from the Jhelum River. The photograph provides a sense of the distinctive architecture of this 2000 year-old-city and highlights two cultural gems of the area: the shrine of Shah-e-Hamdan (the tallest building in the photograph) and the Hari Parbat fort (off in the distance just to the right of the Shah-e-Hamdan shrine).