Chutter Manzil Palace, With the King’s Boat in the Shape of a Fish. First attack of Sir Colin Campbell in November, 1857, Lucknow, 1858
This is one of my favorite photographs from the show (and the first plate in the book). First of all, it’s a great boat (with rattan scales no less), one seemingly half-imagined and fictional, as many of the truly magnificent things in India often are. The photograph lives up to this expectation. The way the boat fits into the space delineated by the water, while barely being submerged, is magical. The lyric arc of the back fin (and that little bit of light around it) pushes the boat and our eyes forward towards the Palace, while our eyes meander past the tilting two-masted schooner. The inclusion of the beautiful triad of figures echoes the suite of the three buildings flanking the Palace, thus furthering the surreal quality of the image.
(Lois Conner, ‘Felice Beato - A Photographer on the Eastern Road’, China Heritage Quarterly, No. 26, Jun 2011.)
