1410
on completion of printing and fi nalising the accounts in
1860 he left for England on a two-year furlough disap-
pointed and in poor health.
Tripe returned to military duties in 1863 and his last
known photographs were taken in 1870 while stationed
in Burma. In 1873 he returned to Devonport, England,
retiring from the army in 1875. During the 1880s he
was active in local charities, and indulged a passion
for collecting shells and corals, some of which were
acquired by British Museum after his death in 1902.
His photographic record shows not only diligence and
determination to carry out his commission well, a tech-
nical mastery of his medium, especially the calotype
process, but also a great visual awareness and sympathy
for his subject, producing some of the fi nest architectural
studies of the period.
Sarah McDonald
Biography
Born in Devon, England on 14 April 1822. Educated in
classical and mathematical studies at Devonport Clas-
sical School. 1839 joined the Madras Establishment
of the Army of the East India Company as a Cadet of
Infantry. First documented photographs taken around
hometown of Devonport 1853—54. Photographs taken
on leave around Bangalore 1854 received the fi rst class
medal in the Madras Exhibition of 1855.
Appointed Offi cial Photographer to the Government
of India Mission to Ava (Burma) in 1844 and following
year appointed as government photographer to the Ma-
dras Presidency taking up post in 1857. Photographed
exhibits in the Madras Exhibition and Madras residents
followed by a photographic tour of the Southern Dis-
tricts of the Presidency. Published various volumes in
1858: Photographic Views in Madura; Photographic
Views of Poodoocottah; Photographic Views of Ryakotta
and other places in the Salem District; Photographic
Views of Seringham; Photographic Views in Tanjore
and Trivady; Stereographs of Madura; Stereographs of
Trichinopoly. 1860 Photographic Department of Madras
Presidency closed. Last known photographs taken in
- In 1873 returned to England, retiring from the
army in 1875 with honourary rank of major general.
Died 2 March 1902.
Exhibitions
1855 Madras Exhibition of Raw Products, Arts and
Manufactures of Southern India. Awarded First
Class Medal.
1857 Madras Exhibition of Raw Products, Arts and
Manufactures of Southern India.
1857 Photographic Society of Bengal Exhibition
(Calcutta)
1859 Madras Photographic Society Exhibition
See also: Murray, John; Calotype and Talbotype; Le
Gray, Gustave; Waxed Paper Negative Processes; and
Wet Collodion Negative.Further Reading
Falconer, John, India: Pioneering Photographers 1850–1900,
The British library. London, 2002.
Falconer, John, Satish Sharma, and Brett Rogers, A Shifting Fo-
cus: Photography in India 1850–1900, The British Council,
1995.
Dewan, Janet, Linnaeus Tripe: Photographs of Burma and Mad-
ura in the 1850s, Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1988.
Dewan, Janet, and Sutnik, Maia-Mari, Linnaeus Tripe: Photog-
rapher of British India 1854 –1870, Toronto: Art Gallery of
Ontario, 1986.
Desmond, Ray, Photography in India in the Nineteenth Century,
London: India Offi ce Library and Records Report. 1974.
Hershkowitz, Robert, The British Photographer Abroad: The
First Thirty Years, London, 1980.TUMINELLO, LUDOVICO (1824–1907)
Italian photographer
Along with the painter Giacomo Caneva (1813–1865)
from Padua, Tuminello represents outstanding, aesthetic
Italian photography at the beginning of the introduction
of the process to Italy. Although not always consistent in
quality, at his best in landscape topography and architec-
ture, he conveys, by control of tone, especially the use
of strong contrasts, of dark shadow and bright light, and
an expert selection of composition and viewpoint, the
grandeur and emotional experience, the melancholy that
is Rome. In this he mirrors the monumentality caught by
both Caneva and Robert McPherson, the foremost pho-
tographer of the period. Born Rome, Tuminello started
photography around 1842 but moved to Turin in 1849
for political reasons during the revolutionary upheavals
in Rome. He returned in 1869 and commemorated in a
panorama (three photographs) the siege of Rome by the
Italian troops in 1870, including the breach of the walls.
He also visited Sardinia, Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia on
expeditions led by the Marchese Orazio Antinori. Tumi-
nello persisted in using the calotype (along with glass
negatives) after the sweeping success of the new wet
plate process post 1851 when the market then became
fl ooded with often nondescript images made exclusively
for those on the Grand Tour: their success was to deny
the photographer’s personality. Tuminello bought and
distributed Canova’s picture library produced for the
artists of the French Academy at the Villa Medici (and
may have used some of his negatives as his own, not
uncommon). In 1903 his archive was auctioned but
some paper negatives are preserved in the Gabinetto
Fotografi co Nazionale in Rome. We still await a serious
study of this remarkable photographer.
Alistair Crawford