May 24, 2010

Nawab's Dilkusha Garden - Dhaka 1904

Photograph taken by Fritz Kapp in 1904 of a large garden house built by the Nawabs in the Dilkusha Gardens in Dacca (now Dhaka), part of an album of 30 prints from the Curzon Collection. Garden Houses were large buildings designed in the European style and set in extensive grounds. Dilkusha Gardens were adjacent to the watery Motijheel area, near swamps and marshes. The commercial heart of present-day Dhaka has since engulfed the area. Lord Curzon was Viceroy of India from 1899-1905. In February 1904, he toured Eastern Bengal and visited Dhaka on the 18th and 19th where he stayed at the Ahsan Manzil Palace. This album of gelatine-silver prints commemorates his Dhaka visit, though it is not a record of it and only presents us with general views. Kapp worked as a commercial photographer from the 1880s onwards and had studios in Chowringhee Road and Humayun Place in Calcutta. From the early 1900s he had a studio in Wise Ghat Road in Dhaka.

Source: bl.uk (British Library)