Mutiny Memoirs

Album of photographs taken in Kanpur and Lucknow immediately after the Indian Mutiny. The majority appear to be copy prints (three are of drawings), although some, possibly ten, could have been printed from the original negatives. The album begins with oval medallion portraits of officers and printed lists of those who died. Subjects include the barracks where General Sir Hugh Wheeler was shot, the 'Chamber of Blood' where women and children were massacred, ruins of the Residency and the bridge of boats over the Gomti river, erected by Sir Colin Campbell at the re-conquering of Lucknow.

Part of the extract from The Morning Post, 20 May 1892, reads "We therefore welcome on national grounds, a beautiful and most affecting album containing a collection of sixty-eight (sic) photographs taken some thirty-three or thirty-four years ago, and some of the negatives of which have themselves had a strange history. They have lain in England (sent there for reproduction more than thirty-three years ago) all these years, were believed lost, and have only recently been recovered by the taker of the pictures."

This gives a glowing and detailed description and encourages an observer to wonder whether it may have been written by Dannenberg himself. The resemblance of some of these photographs to those taken at the time by Felice Beato is such that it is tempting to suggest Dannenberg was copying Beato's work. In this album, however, none of the prints appear to be precise copies of any of Beato's views.