The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Horizontally oriented black-and-white photograph of a pavilion with two rows of columns supporting a roof over a sculpture of a bull laying down, mostly cast in shadow. Intricate carvings on the columns feature geometric patterns with both human and animal-like figures facing in towards the bull. A floral pattern marks the underside of the roof and vertical alternating light and dark stripes at the base of the pavilion.

Great Pagoda, Great Bull, Front View, Tanjore, India (Rajarajeshvara Temple), plate 12 from Photographic Views of Tanjore and Trivady (Madras: Madras Presidency)

1857

Captain Linnaeus Tripe

(British, 1822–1902)
published by

Madras Presidency

England
salted paper print from calotype negative
Image: 27.2 x 38 cm (10 11/16 x 14 15/16 in.); Paper: 28 x 39.1 cm (11 x 15 3/8 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1987.218
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Active in Burma and India during the late 1850s, Linneaus Tripe was a professional soldier and official photographer for the Madras Presidency in India from 1856 to 1860.

Description

In a pillared pavilion called a mandapa, a colossal stone sculpture of Nandi, the mount of the Hindu god Shiva, faces the doorway to the main temple sanctum. The inner wall and section of the great gateway leading into the sacred site can be seen in the background of Tripe’s photograph.

As an active Indian temple, the plinth, or base, of the pavilion is painted with alternating red and white stripes. Tripe, however, opted not to include any living presence in the image, since humans and animals might move and create a blur, spoiling his clear photographic record of the monument.
  • ?–1987
    (Stephen White Gallery of Photography, Los Angeles, CA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1987–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1986.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 2 (February 1987): 38–79. p. 67, no. 95 www.jstor.org
    Hinson, Tom E. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: p. 360
  • Temples and Worship in South Asia. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 14, 2024-March 9, 2025).
    Indian Gallery 242b Rotation – November 2017-April 2018. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (November 10, 2017-April 16, 2018).
    Travel Photography: Early Images of India. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 2-July 17, 2002).
    Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).
    The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988).
  • {{cite web|title=Great Pagoda, Great Bull, Front View, Tanjore, India (Rajarajeshvara Temple), plate 12 from Photographic Views of Tanjore and Trivady (Madras: Madras Presidency)|url=false|author=Captain Linnaeus Tripe, Madras Presidency|year=1857|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1987.218