Lala Deen Dayal

Raja Lala Deen Dayal (c. 1844–1905), also known early in his career as Din Dyal or Diyal, was an Indian photographer. He started taking paid commissions in the mid-1870s and later opened studios in Indore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. Dayal served as the official court photographer for the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Mahbub Ali Khan, who gave him the title Raja Bahadur Musavvir Jung Bahadur. In 1885, he was also named photographer to the Viceroy of India. Queen Victoria granted him a Royal Warrant in 1897, and the Nizam later bestowed the honorary title of Raja upon him.

Born in Sardhana, Uttar Pradesh, near Meerut, into a family of jewellers, Dayal trained as a lower-subordinate engineer at Thomason College of Civil Engineering in Roorkee (now IIT Roorkee) in 1866. That same year, he entered government service as head estimator and draughtsman in the Department of Works Secretariat Office in Indore, while pursuing photography on the side. His first patron there was Maharaja Tukoji Rao II of Indore, who introduced him to Sir Henry Daly, the Governor General’s agent for Central India. Both men encouraged his work, and the Maharaja urged him to establish a studio in Indore. Soon, Dayal received commissions from Indian princes and British officials. In 1868, he photographed the Governor-General’s tour of Central India, founded his studio Lala Deen Dayal & Sons, and was hired to document temples and palaces across India. He set up studios in Indore in the mid-1870s, Secunderabad in 1886, and Bombay in 1896.

During 1875–76, Dayal photographed the Royal Tour of the Prince and Princess of Wales. In the early 1880s, he traveled with Sir Lepel Griffin through Bundelkhand, capturing ancient architecture. Griffin commissioned a portfolio of 86 archaeological photographs titled *Famous Monuments of Central India*. The following year, Dayal left government service to focus fully on professional photography. He became court photographer to the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad in 1885, soon moving from Indore to Hyderabad. That same year, he was appointed photographer to the Viceroy of India. The Nizam later gave him the honorary title Raja, and Dayal formed the firm Raja Deen Dayal & Sons in Hyderabad. In 1897, he was named photographer to Queen Victoria. He also accompanied the Royal Tour of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1905–1906.

Today, the largest collection of Dayal’s work—2,857 glass plate negatives—is held by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in New Delhi, which purchased it in 1989. The Peabody Essex Museum in the US and the Alkazi collection in Delhi also hold significant archives, including celebrated images of the 1870s famine. In 2010, IGNCA hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work curated by Jyotindra Jain. In 2006, a curated selection of his photographs appeared at the Salar Jung Museum during the Times Hyderabad Festival, and that November the Ministry of Communications released a commemorative stamp honoring him at a ceremony in Jubilee Hall, Hyderabad.