Contact sheet

Every image assembled for this project, laid out as a plate sheet — with a plain statement of what is known about each, and what is not.

Plates10

CategoriesPortraits · Group photographs · Commemorative material · Historical context · Recreated illustration

Cataloguing ruleWhere a photographer, studio, date or occasion is not recorded in the material available for this project, that is stated. No metadata has been invented.

§ 01

Portraits

Half-length photographic portrait of Bipin Chandra Pal in spectacles, wearing a dark coat with a light shawl over one shoulder, reproduced within a printed oval frame. — Bipin Chandra Pal, as printed in 1911

A halftone portrait reproduced in the *Andhra Patrika Samvatsaradi Sanchika*, the annual volume of a Telugu periodical, 1911. Pal is shown half-length in spectacles, in a dark coat with a light shawl, within a printed oval. Its interest is not only the likeness: it is direct evidence that his image circulated through the Indian periodical press across linguistic regions.

**Date** 1911 · **Source** Andhra Patrika annual, page 199 (cropped) · **Photographer** not recorded

Full-length studio photograph of Bipin Chandra Pal seated in a chair, in spectacles, wearing a dark coat over a white dhoti and shawl, holding a walking stick, beside a table with books, against a painted backdrop. — Full-length studio portrait

Pal seated, holding a walking stick, with books on a draped table beside him and a painted backdrop behind. A conventional studio composition of the period; the books are part of the studio's furniture, but the pose is nonetheless that of a man of letters.

**Date** not recorded · **Studio** not recorded · **Photographer** not recorded

Seated half-length photographic portrait of Bipin Chandra Pal in round spectacles, wearing a dark garment with a white shawl draped over one shoulder. — Seated portrait, close

A closer half-length study, seated, in round spectacles with a white shawl over one shoulder. Among the more direct surviving likenesses.

**Date** not recorded · **Photographer** not recorded

Small sepia-toned head-and-shoulders portrait of Bipin Chandra Pal wearing spectacles and a light shawl over a dark garment. — Sepia portrait, small format

A small sepia print, head and shoulders. Reproduced here at close to its original scale; the surviving file is 200 by 250 pixels and does not support enlargement.

**Date** not recorded · **Photographer** not recorded · **Note** low resolution

Photograph of a framed painted portrait of Bipin Chandra Pal in spectacles, wearing a dark coat and white shawl, with a painted landscape and sky behind him. — Painted portrait, framed

A photograph of a **painting**, not a photographic portrait. Pal is shown in spectacles with a white shawl, against a painted landscape. Commemorative portraits of this kind were produced after a subject's death as often as during their life.

**Medium** painting · **Artist** not recorded · **Date** not recorded

§ 02

People & group photographs

Black and white photograph of three seated men outside a building with louvred shutters: Lala Lajpat Rai in a light turban and dark coat, Bal Gangadhar Tilak in a turban and white dhoti holding a stick, and Bipin Chandra Pal in spectacles with a shawl across his shoulder. — Lajpat Rai, Tilak and Pal

The three leaders whose surnames were joined into the phrase “Lal–Bal–Pal”, photographed seated in front of a shuttered building. Left to right: Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal. The image is among the most reproduced of the Swadeshi period. Read the comparison →

**Date** not established · **Occasion** not established · **Photographer** not recorded

On what is not here

No photographs of Pal's family, of his newspapers' offices, of the Madras lectures of 1907, or of his birthplace at Poil were available for this project. Nor is any known photograph of him as a young man.

Where a website of this kind shows such images, they are frequently later recreations, misattributions, or pictures of other people. Their absence here is deliberate.

§ 03

Commemorative material

Green Indian postage stamp of 15 naya paise showing a portrait of Bipin Chandra Pal in spectacles, inscribed India Postage above, with the dates 7-11-1858 to 20-5-1932 and his name in Devanagari and Roman script below. — Centenary stamp, 1958 — unused

Issued by the Government of India on 7 November 1958 to mark the hundredth anniversary of Pal's birth. Denomination 15 naya paise, printed in green. The design carries his portrait, his dates and his name in Devanagari and Roman script. The issue was described as commemorating a scholar and patriot.

**Issued** 7 November 1958 · **Value** 15 nP · **Issuer** Government of India

Close crop of the green 1958 Bipin Chandra Pal postage stamp affixed to an envelope, partly covered by a circular postmark, showing the dates 7-11-1858 to 20-5-1932. — The same stamp, postmarked

A used example of the 1958 issue on cover, partly obscured by a circular cancellation. Its interest is the cancellation itself: this is the commemoration in ordinary circulation rather than in a collector's album.

**Issue** 1958 centenary · **Postmark** illegible · **Date of use** not established

Reading a stamp as evidence

The 1958 issue is the most useful documentary object in this archive. It carries both of Pal's dates in printed form, issued by a state authority within living memory of his death — independent corroboration of 7 November 1858 and 20 May 1932.

It also records how the new Indian republic chose to describe him at his centenary: not as a revolutionary or an agitator, but as a scholar and patriot.

§ 04

Historical context, and one recreation

Black and white photograph on an airport apron: five people beside an aircraft, two men shaking hands in the centre, a woman in a sari with dark glasses and a man in a light sherwani and cap on the left, and a woman in a sari on the right. — Nehru in the United States, October 1949

Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of independent India, greeted by President Harry S. Truman at the start of his American visit in October 1949, accompanied by his daughter Indira Gandhi. Included as context for the independent India that came seventeen years after Pal's death. **Pal does not appear in this photograph and had no connection with the occasion.**

**Date** October 1949 · **Place** United States · **Relation to Pal** contextual only

Painted illustration of a bespectacled man in a dark coat and white dhoti speaking from a wooden platform with one arm raised, before a seated crowd of men, women and children, some holding a spinning wheel and tools, with uniformed figures at the rear. — Artist's impression of a Swadeshi meeting — **not a photograph**

A modern painted illustration produced for editorial use in the twenty-first century, depicting a Swadeshi-era public meeting. It is a recreation. It does not depict a documented occasion, it is not a historical photograph, and it should not be cited as evidence of anything. It appears on this site only as a labelled illustration.

**Medium** modern digital illustration · **Historical value** none · **Status** recreation, clearly labelled

Where the documents are

Pal's own publications are the substantial archive, and much of it is publicly accessible. His 1907 Madras lectures survive in a digitised copy of the Ganesh & Co. edition; several of his books are held and catalogued by research libraries.

See the catalogue of writings for what exists and where the records come from.

Archive policy

Only images actually supplied for this project appear here. Nothing has been generated to fill a gap.
No date, photographer, studio, sitter or occasion has been invented. Where a field is unknown, it is printed as unknown.
Recreated and modern illustrative material is labelled as such in the caption, in the alt text and in the plate record.
Images are displayed complete. No portrait on this site is cropped through the face, head or shoulders; frames adapt to the image rather than the image to the frame.
Corrections and additions to any record on this page are welcome — see Contact.