Munad Khani Group--Photographer: Burke, John Medium: Photographic print Date: 1879

Portrait of Afghan chiefs probably taken at Kabul, Afghanistan, by John Burke in 1879-80. Burke was the most intrepid of all the photographers active in Victorian India. He travelled widely in the sub-continent but is best known for his work pertaining to the Second Afghan War (1878-80). In this two-year campaign, he worked steadily in the hostile environment of Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province (now in Pakistan), recording the military events, the topography and the people of the region in which the strategies of the Great Game (concerning the Anglo-Russian territorial rivalry) were played out. Burke also photographed a number of the darbars or meetings that took place between the British leaders and Afghan chiefs which led to the uneasy peace treaties characteristic of the campaign. This album is full of images taken during the occupation of Kabul in the later phase of the war, October 1879.