Bayadère à Delhi, Inde (Dancer in Delhi, India)

Charles Shepherd is one of the most important figures in early Indian photography. Between 1862 and about 1878, he was involved in a number of firms in northern India (eventually with branches in Calcutta and Bombay) that marketed photographs to residents and tourists. Shepherd's partners included such notable photographers as Samuel Bourne. Shepherd took a series of photographs of dancers of a type usually referred to as "Nautch girls" after the word for a type of popular dance of northern India. Most of the images in Shepherd's series depict a single dancer or a group of dancers (with or without musicians) in close-up against a background of three cusped arches (from an as-yet-unidentified building in Delhi). This photograph offers a more distant view and gives a better sense of the festivities surrounding the Nautch. This print was most likely purchased by a French tourist, since it is labeled in French.