Part of a portfolio of photographs taken in 1858 by Major Robert Christopher Tytler and his wife, Harriet, in the aftermath of the Uprising of 1857. The Red Fort was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (r.1628-1658) at his new capital Shahjahanabad at Delhi. It was the seat of Mughal power until the Uprising of 1857, when Bahadur Shah the last Mughal Emperor was dethroned. The fort was commenced in 1639 and the layout is in the form of an irregular octagon with high battlemented walls around the city side and ending in three-storey towers at the north and south ends of the river front. On the city side there is a deep moat, which has been dry since 1857. At the start of the Uprising of 1857 the Fort was a focal point for the insurgents as it was the Palace of the Mughal Emperor, the symbolic head of the Uprising. After the British retook Delhi they made it their headquarters damaging many of its gardens and pavilions.