Gentoo dancing girls from Madras, displaying jewellery

Studio portrait of three dancing girls taken by Nicholas & Curths in 1870, from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections. This photograph was shown at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. The girls in the photograph are dancers as shown by the anklets of small bells they are wearing that jingle as their feet hit the floor in time to the music. After photography was introduced into India in the 1840s it rapidly grew in popularity, particularly as a means to record the vast diversity of people and their dress, manners, trades, customs and religions.

Photographer: Nicholas and Curths

Medium: Photographic print

Date: 1870