“Himalayan Encounters – Hidden Views from 170 Years Ago”
A German-Indian team of experts, which included Hermann Kreutzmann, a geography professor emeritus from Freie Universität, curated several exhibits featuring works by the German-born Schlagintweit brothers in India in the mid-nineteenth century
Jul 27, 2026
A Himalayan panorama viewed from Naina Peak in Nainital by Adolph Schlagintweit, April 29,1855. The “Chiner Panorama” was the first detailed view of a long stretch of the Himalayas featuring Nanda Devi (7,816 m), the highest and most sacred peak.
Image Credit: Alpine Museum, Munich
In the mid-nineteenth century the Munich-born brothers Hermann, Adolf, and Robert Schlagintweit received training at Berlin School of Geography under the cosmopolitan explorer and enlightened geographers Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter. The brothers were already geographers and geologists, but were preparing for a large-scale scientific expedition. Thanks to friendly relations between the Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm IV and Queen Victoria, the three brothers were hired to conduct a comprehensive magnetic survey across the Indian subcontinent with the British East India Company.
The expedition took place between 1855 and 1857, and when the brothers returned, they brought along 750 watercolors, oil paintings, and hand-colored photographs in addition to countless artifacts. Using landscape documentation methods common at the time, the team created impressive records from new perspectives. They focused on glaciers, rivers, sacred sites, and rural life.
The opening of the exhibit at the India International Centre in New Delhi attracted great attention from the media.
Image Credit: Saakshi Bisht
More than half of the paintings have survived. In 2015 the Alpine Museum in Munich presented the results of the Schlagintweit expedition in a comprehensive exhibit. Professor Hermann Kreutzmann at Freie Universität had invited historian Professor Shekhar Pathak from India to attend the exhibit’s grand opening.
During a joint visit to the archives of the Alpine Museum and the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Professor Kreutzmann and Professor Pathak began to think about making the drawings and topographical sketches, which had been created in India but never exhibited there, available to an Indian audience.
This idea was finally realized in the spring of 2026. A selection of seventy-seven reproductions of paintings and drawings curated specifically for the Himalayan context was shown in three exhibits: at the India International Centre in New Delhi, the Doon Library & Research Centre in Dehradun, and CRST College in Nainital. During their expedition the Schlagintweit brothers worked with assistants and guides from the Himalayas. The brothers’ work is well known in the region. This explains the extraordinary response to the exhibits as reflected in visitor numbers and media coverage. They have certainly piqued people’s interest in pursuing further collaborations.
Shekhar Pathak, professor of history (People’s Association for Himalayan Area Research), Vibhuti Sukhramani (head of the New Delhi Office of Freie Universität), and Hermann Kreutzmann, professor of human geography (Freie Universität Berlin)
Image Credit: Saakshi Bisht
The exhibition catalog is available on the PAHAR website.
Meandering Valley of the Brahmaputra
The impressive panorama of the Brahmaputra Basin reveals diverse distributaries and large islands (char). Jute is one of the crops cultivated on the larger islands.
Brahmaputra Valley near Tezpur, Assam. Hermann Schlagintweit, January 24, 1856
Image Credit: Alpine Museum, Munich
Lamayuru Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery
As one of Ladakh’s oldest monastic complexes, Lamayuru is situated in an arid high-altitude desert at an elevation of over 3,500 meters, where irrigation is needed to cultivate the barren land. Hermann Schlagintweit discussed local precipitation patterns and living conditions with the monks.
Lamayuru Monastery in Ladakh. Hermann Schlagintweit, October 6, 1856
Image Credit: Alpine Museum, Munich
Bamboo Bridge Construction in the Khasi Hills
The members of the expedition recorded a wide range of spectacular bridge structures that documented the use of local materials.
Bogapani Bridge in the Khasi Hills west of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya. Hermann Schlagintweit, November 10, 1855
Image Credit: Alpine Museum, Munich
Tholing Buddhist Monastery
During his brief stay in Tibet, Adolph Schlagintweit sketched one of the most important monastic settlements in Western Tibet, the former Kingdom of Guge. The sketch is one of the earliest drawings of a monastic settlement that was later destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Tholing Buddhist Monastery. Adolph Schlagintweit, September 12, 1855
Image Credit: Alpine Museum, Munich
The original German version of this article appeared in campus.leben, the online magazine published by Freie Universität Berlin.