An album of photographs by Lala Deen Diyal containing albumen prints of various sizes, most measuring either approximately 205 x 145 mm or 250 x 195 mm, with captions beneath prints and signed on the last page 'Deen Diyal Indore 20th August 1885'. The majority of the prints are initialled DD and have an individual number which is also annotated below on the album page. It is assumed this is the photographers’ own reference.

Bharatpur and Deeg (Dig).
This album gives a detailed documentation of the two great fortress cities in the Rajasthan state of Bharatpur. Bharatpur, the capital, and situated some 100 miles ENE of Jaipur, is a walled city on the form of an irregular oblong lying NE-SW. The Inner Fort, surrounded by a mud wall and a ditch is contained on the north-east portion of the Outer Fort. Three palaces run across the centre of the Inner Fort from east to west: the Raja's Palace, Badan Singh's Palace and the Kamra Palace. Access is gained by only two gates, the Chau Burj at the south and the Assaldati at the north.

For 500 years the area was ruled from Delhi but Jat settlement in the late 17th and early 18th centuries displaced imperial rule and the state saw its greatest period of independent power under the leader Suraj Mal. In 1733 he captured Bharatpur from his Jat rival Kham Karan and laid the foundations for a new capital. Twenty years later in 1853 he sacked Delhi, and repelled the imperial forces a year later. Agra he captured in 1761 (which city was held by the Jats until 1774) and after his death in 1763 he was succeeded by his son Jawahir Singh who extended Jat possessions still further. This point marked the height of their power however and the following years saw the diminution of their influence. The rise of Maratha power led to the ceding of Alwar Fort by Bharatpur in 1775 and in 1776 Dig was captured by Najat Khan. The major struggle in the early years of the 19th century was the fight for supremacy between the British and the Marathas and this further eroded Jat domination in the area. The two towns were the scene of hostilities in 1803 when Lord Lake took the field against the Jat/Maratha alliance. In December of that year he took Dig and laid unsuccessful siege to Bharatpur. Four assaults, with great loss of life, failed to breach the defences, but a peace treaty was concluded in April 1805. Bharatpur was again the scene of hostilities when it was stormed by Lord Combermere in 1826 after disputes over the Maharaja's succession.

Dig, a walled town of great antiquity 20 miles north of Bharatpur is of greater architectural importance and is principally famous for the palace of fine-grained sandstone built by Suraj Mal: 'Dîg ... is on a perfectly level plain, and laid out with a regularity that would satisfy the most fastidious Renaissance architect. It is wholly the work of Sûraj-Mall, the virtual founder of the Bharatpur dynasty, who commenced it, apparently in 1725 ... It wants, it is true, the massive character of the fortified palaces of other Râjput states, but for grandeur of conception and beauty of detail it surpasses them all.
The whole palace was to have consisted of a rectangular enclosure twice the length of its breadth, surrounded with buildings, with a garden in the centre, divided into two parts by a broad terrace, intended to carry the central pavilion. Only one of these rectangles has been completed, measuring about 700 feet square, crossed in the centre by ranges of the most beautiful fountains and parterres, laid out in the formal style of the East, and interspersed with architectural ornaments of the most elaborate finish'. Fergusson (1910), volume 2, pp.178-79.