Murray's view of the principal street in Agra manages to convey the heat of the day and the local activity through the deep shadow and the blurred pedestrians, whose passage reads like dust accumulated during the long exposure. With ground-floor shops shaded from the sun and second-story loggias open to the air, the buildings-each different in size, scale, and decoration-shoulder each other and jostle for space like so many individuals in the stream of people shimmering below.
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Inscription: Inscribed in negative, BR: [illegible]; inscribed in pencil, on mount, recto BR: "PRINCIPAL STREET AT AGRA"
By descent to John Somerset Murray [Valerie Lloyd, as agent]; Gilman Paper Company Collection, New York, April 5, 1982
Murray's printed text for this image (affixed to print in Royal Archives, Windsor) reads: "XIII.--THE CHOWK. This view shows the principal street, or chowk, of the city of Agra. It is about a mile in length, broad, and well paved, and generally crowded with people on business or pleasure; it leads from the direction of the civil lines, in which are the offices of Government, the courts of justice, &c. to the Fort and Great Mosque. The shops are shaded from the sun by sloping screens of grass matting, which project into the street, affording needful shelter to both buyers and sellers."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," May 25–July 4, 1993.
Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," August 7–October 2, 1993.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," June 19–September 11, 1994.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860," September 24–December 30, 2007.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860," February 3–May 4, 2008.
Musée d'Orsay. "Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860," May 26–September 7, 2008.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selections from the Permanent Collection - Johnson Rotation 75," April 10–September 18, 2018.
Hambourg, Maria Morris, Pierre Apraxine, Malcolm Daniel, Virginia Heckert, and Jeff L. Rosenheim. The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. no. 81.
John Murray (British, Blackhouse, Aberdeenshire, Scotland 1809–1898 Sheringham, Norfolk county, England)
1850s
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