Girl wearing jewellery, from the Bengal collection at the International Exhibition of 1872

Full-length studio portrait of a reclining woman, with a hookah on the left, at Lucknow, taken by an unknown photographer in c. 1872, from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections. Many examples of jewellery from India were exhibited at the London Universal Exhibition of 1872 and this photograph may have shown to demonstrate the way the jewellery was worn. The girl in the photograph is possibly a dancer as shown by the anklets of bells she is wearing. 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: Unknown

Medium: Photographic print

Date: 1872