Amerapoora. Maha-Too-Lo-Bounghian Kyoung, 1855 (albumen print from a waxed paper negative)

Myanmar / Burma: from a portfolio of 120 prints, taken at Amarapura in Burma (Myanmar). General view of the kyaung (monastery). Monastery buildings served as living quarters and meditation cells for resident monks. Tripe wrote of this kyaung, 'This is like No. 83, being of carved wood gilt and inlaid with mirror. Both of them are under the same Bishop, who resides alternate weeks in each'. In 1855 a British mission was sent to King Mindon Min of Burma to negotiate a settlement regarding Pegu, annexed by the British following the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852. Linnaeus Tripe was the official photographer on this mission, his pioneering architectural and topographical views of the country are an important photographic record. Amarapura, on the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) river, was twice the capital of the Burmese kings of the Konbaung dynasty: from 1782 (the year of its foundation by King Bodawpaya) to 1823 and again from 1837 to 1860, after which Mandalay, 11 km to the north, became capital. Amarapura was the site of the first British Embassy to Burma in 1795, and played host again to Tripe's Mission.