Linnaeus Tripe
1855, November
Rangoon: Henzas on the East Side of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda

Albumen silver print, from waxed paper negative
26.1 x 34.3 cm (10 1/4 x 13 1/2 ins) (image)
 
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Purchase, The Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach, Directors, and Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2012, Accession Number: 2012.323.30
 
Curatorial description (Accessed: 14 October 2017)
Taken from the wide platform on which the Shwe Dagon Pagoda rested, this photograph shows four wooden posts topped with carvings of birds that constituted pious offerings. Burmese art featured various birds, including the hintha, which Tripe called "henza." Usually identified as a duck or goose, the hintha appears in tales of the previous lives of Gautama. In one of these stories, Gautama takes the form of a hintha and offers guidance to a king regarding the importance of royal benevolence—appropriate to this site in Burma's royal capital.
 
LL/78025