Explore Nagina Mosque, Agra Fort, India

Read About This Waxed-Paper Negative for an Early Photograph

This waxed-paper negative captures the Nagina Mosque, a private place of worship built for Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in Agra, India, in the 1630s. The mosque, whose name means “Jewel Mosque,” was reserved exclusively for the women of the royal court. It sits within the Agra Fort complex and is known for its three marble domes and delicate stone carvings.

The photograph was made by Dr. John Murray, a British physician and photographer working in India in the mid-1800s. Murray was stationed in Agra as a surgeon for the British army. His job gave him unusual access to historic sites that most outsiders never saw. He became one of the most important early photographers of Indian architecture, and the Nagina Mosque was among his most striking subjects. Its clean lines, carved marble surfaces, and quiet enclosure made it well-suited to the kind of careful, detailed photography Murray practiced.

Murray changed the color on the negative afterward to improve the final image, darkening the sky for stronger contrast and bleaching the shadows beneath the roof so viewers could see inside the mosque more clearly. Look closely and you can make out the small decorative piercings in the walls and the outlines of distant buildings.

Questions

Write or discuss your responses.

• The Nagina Mosque was built only for the women of the royal court. What does that tell you about life inside the Mughal empire?
• Murray deliberately altered his negative to improve the image. Does that change how you think about old photographs as historical records?
• What details can you make out in the photograph, and what do they suggest about how the mosque was built or decorated?

A mosque is a place of worship for people who practice Islam.

The name of an empire that ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from the early 1500s to the mid-1800s.