View of Taj Mahal, from album "Views of India"

Lala Deen Dayal was one of the most well-known photographers in 19th century India. He began his career as a surveyor in the Public Works Department of Central India. He learnt photography in the early decades of its invention in order to survey landscape and monuments, skills he used throughout his life to capture stunning views of South Asia's artistic past. This album brings together photographs from the mid 1880s and was likely put together for a high-ranking British solider who commissioned it as a souvenir of his time in India. Dayal later acquired the title of "Raja" as court photographer to the Nizam of Hyderabad who created a cuplet in his honor: "In the art of photography, surpassing all / The master of masters, is Raja Deen Dayal".