Entrance to Jugdalluck

Series Title: Afghanistan, February 1880

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.ss

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Location

Not on view

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.

$A horizontally oriented albumen print depicts a rugged mountain pass enclosed by towering, jagged rock faces. At the bottom, eleven figures in turbans and tunics are scattered across a rocky floor bisected by a shallow stream. The fractured stone textures create deep shadows, guiding the eye toward a narrow distant gap. In the lower left, handwritten text reads "Burke 15b." Each figure is rendered as a small, dark shape against the monumental stone.$