Under the Indian sun: British landscape artists 8185026297

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| (DER THE INDIAN SUN BRITISH LANDSCAPE ARTISTS

UNDER

THE

BRITISH

INDIAN

LANDSCAPE EDITED

PAULINE

ROHATGI

MARG

AND

ARTISTS

BY PHEROZA

PUBLICATIONS

GODREJ

SUN

XC), The British Library,

London

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO DR MILDRED ARCHER IN APPRECIATION OF HER PIONEERING WORK ON BRITISH ARTISTS IN INDIA

General Editor Senior Editorial Exec Editorial Executive Copy Editor (Consultant) Designer Production Manager and Deputy Designer Design Assistant Executive Manager — Finance

PRATAPADITYA PAL SAVITA CHANDIRAMANL LK. MEHTA MEHER MAREATIA BEHROZE J. BILIMORIA SUBHASH MANE VARSHA SACHIN VAGAL K.P. S. NAMBIAR

Price: Rs, 1350.00 (US $ 54.00) COPYRIGHT MARG PUBLICATIONS, 1995 ISBN: 81-85026-29.7 Library of Congress Catalog Card. Number: 95-901566 No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form of by any: means, ‘without the prior written permission of the copyright holders. ‘This edition may be exported from India only by the publishers, Marg Publications, and by their authorized distributors and this constitutes a condition of its initial sale and its subsequent sales Published by J. J. Bhabha for Marg Publications at 24, HomiSM Colour separation by Comar Libographers Private Limited, Bombay 400 02 Black and white proce Tata Pres Limited, Bombay Printedby A. 8. Vad L

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

PAULINE

THE

ROHATGI

EAST

vi AND

INDIA

PHEROZA

GODREJ

COMPANY’S

SETTLEMENT

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT BRIAN ALLEN SKETCHING

FROM

PICTURES

NATURE

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA PATRICIA

17

KATTENHORN

PREFACE

TO

A LOST

COLLECTION

THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD PAULINE

A

FAIR

G.

H.

ROHATGI

PICTURE

Hopces AND THE DANIELLS AT RAJMAHAL THE

R.

53

TILLOTSON

POET'S

EYE

THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE

PATRICK CONNER

OF GEORGE

CHINNERY

A CAREER IN ART SIR CHARLES

D’OYLY

J. P. LOSTY

FROM WATERCOLOUR

TO PRINT

107

FALK

NATURE'S

TALL SENTINELS

MOUNTAINSCAPES PHEROZA

GODREJ

CHARGED

‘WILLIAM

WITH

SIMPSON

By

BRITISH

THE

SPIRIT

ARTISTS

OF

IN INDIA

THE

JENIFER GLYNN

APPARELL'’D IN CELESTIAL LIGHT INDIAN PAINTINGS

INDAR PASRICHA INDEX

67

81

JAMES BAILLIE FRASER AND HIS VIEWS OF CALCUTTA TOBY

31

OF ALBERT GOODWIN

EAST

121

137

151

167

vi INTRODUCTION PAULINE ROHATGI AND PHEROZA GODREJ

By granting a royal charter to the East India Company in 1600, Queen Elizabeth I launched

the British connections with India that have flourished ever since. It was, however, only once the three Presidency towns of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta were established and life became settled by about 1770, that professional British artists travelled to India in search of commissions and in the hope of making a fortune with which to return home. William Hodges, and especially the uncle and nephew partnership of Thomas and William

Daniell,

are the best known

of all British

landscape

artists to have worked

in India.

The reason for their popularity is fairly clear. After returning and settling in London, they became celebrated for their pictures of Indian scenery, depicted in the fashionable Picturesque style of the latter eighteenth century, during their lifetime. Among their patrons were civilians and military personnel who, having served in India, were keen to establish an English

country estate decorated with pictures of Indian scenes.

The British at home were also

captivated by exotic tales of the Mughals, of princely kingdoms with domed palaces, glittering mosques, and untold riches. ‘Their interest in Oriental culture increased as news of the East India Company's

exploits in India reached home. As the lifestyle of the British in India grew

more opulent, they also wanted pictures to adom their palatial bungalows. The reputations of Hodges and the Daniells were greatly enhanced by their own engravings: Hodges’ Select Views in India and the Daniells' Oriental Scenery. Through eyes conditioned by the Picturesque vision, they portrayed the palaces, mosques, forts, temples, and scenery of India, thus satisfying the public's

thirst for images of an exotic country.

Besides Hodges and the Daniells, many other landscape artists produced pictures worthy

of study. The aim of this volume is to highlight some of them in an attempt to convey

something of this great pictorial with the peak of artistic activity nineteenth century, a number of and Edward Lear, were painting

wealth. The earliest pictures discussed date from about 1730, taking place between 1780 and 1840. Even during the latter landscape artists, such as William Simpson, George Landsecr, long after the advent of photography, while Albert Goodwin

was still painting scenes of India well into this century.

Although the East India Company never became a regular patron of the arts, the Directors commissioned a set of six oil paintings of its chief settlements to hang in their Court Room

at East India House,

London

in about

1730.

These

pictures of Fort St George

and

Fort

William, Bombay, Tellicherry, the Cape of Good Hope, and St Helena were meant to represent the extent of the Company's trading powers, rather than depict a topographically accurate impression of each place. The artists George Lambert and Samuel Scott never visited

India. The article on them discusses the pictures in their contemporary stylistic context and as part of a decorative scheme at East India House. Besides professional artists there were a number of skilled amatcur artists among the soldiers and civilians posted in India. Many cadets received instruction in survey drawing in England and were recording topographical features of the Indian landscape, for maps and

official surveys, several decades before Hodges and the Daniells arrived in the country Whereas many artists, including the Daniels, often used a camera obscura Gt box with a lens which reflected the landscape image onto a sheet of paper for tracing such features ats intricate architectural cletails, survey instruments would be used by the military for recordi the lie of the land, Many soldiers also sketched for pleasure, and they frequently hud an ey for detail which the professional artist, on the lookout for picturesque features, might overlook, As a result, the value of their Work often fies in its topographical accuracy.

The oil

INTRODUCTION

vii

paintings by Francis Swain Ward have been much underestimated, probably because, as a soldier in the Madras Army, he was never classified as a professional artist. Yet, he produced the first oil paintings of Indian monuments in landscape settings from drawings which he had made on the spot. More details about his life and work, especially an important list of his pictures, have been found in the India Office Records, which have helped to place him in context with other artists. As the articles on Hodges and the Daniells and on Chinnery emphasize, it was their search for picturesque features, for example among the ruins and exotic vegetation at Rajmahal, and in the village life of Bengal, that primarily motivated them. An account of the intricate story of landscape painting in India, in relation to the stylistic changes in England during this period, is generally beyond the scope of this volume. Passing references are made to the Sublime and Romantic visions of landscape, especially in relation to mountain scenery.

These aspects of British art in India are discussed, however, in the essays by Mildred Archer and

Ronald

Lightbown

in

India

Observed:

India

as

viewed

by British

Artists,

1760-1860

published by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 1982. Many civilians also sketched and painted. Several of those who had the good fortune to be tutored by George Chinnery achieved considerable reputations as landscape antists.

Chinnery’s love of village India, his theories and techniques, greatly influenced his artist friends in Calcutta. Sir Charles and Lady D’Oyly, James Baillie Fraser, and members of the Prinsep family benefited especially from his teaching. Their artistic work frequently formed part of their social life. Even so, as is pointed out in the various articles, they generally took this pleasure very seriously. Some valued their pictures to such an extent that they published them as prints, and the D'Oylys and their friends actually set up a private lithographic press in Patna. For those who wished to have their work published in London, it was no easy task to organize from India, unless, like the D'Oylys, they had contacts in high social circles. The article on Charles D'Oyly discusses different aspects of his art, an account of his oils including several recently discovered paintings, his corespondence with Warren Hastings, and his Views of Calcutta and the previously unknown role of George Francis White.

‘An understanding of James Baillie Fraser's artistic recent discovery of twenty-four watercolours which Views of Calcutta. These vividly reflect the influence Fraser wrote: my friend, and one of my masters,

work has been much increased by the he prepared for the engravers of his of Chinnery about whose instruction George Chinnery, says: the first steps

up the hill of art are not so difficult, and the process may be quick, and often amazing; many

attain a certain height, where they stick; to get beyond, is the difficulty; and every quarter of a mile here is worth ten miles below; the last hundred yards are so difficult, that hardly any conquer them: Turner, pethaps alone, has done so in his time.” In addition to Indian architecture and the numerous elegant European-style buildings in the cities, aspects of nature, the grandeur of the mountains, waterfalls, rivers, the exotic trees and vegetation provided artists with countless subjects. Their pictures are visual documents, the relevance of which in their original context is not always obvious, and they might appeal today for reasons that are quite different from the artists’ own intentions. It is important, for example, to distinguish between the sketch made on the spot, a drawing or watercolour worked up subsequently, and an oil painting produced in the artist's studio. Their writings, letters, diaries, and published texts also frequently add to an understanding of their work. A biography of William Simpson, based on his own recollections, was published in 1903, but it does not do j fo his manuscript diaries, on which the article on him is based. On reading Albert Goodwin's diaries, it is not difficult to appreciate his philosophy and the often painful struggle to do justice in oil paint, to his experience of the Indian landscape. This volume can focus on the pictures of only a small selection of artists. It will be appreciated that many more artists with great talent have been omitted. Interest in the subject really began with the pioneering work of Dr Mildred Archer, and her books, catalogues, and

INTRODUCTION

viii

articles on the subject will always be a major source of reference. It is gratifying to find that new information and more pictures are still being found, some of which are published for the first time

in this volume.

The articles also demonstrate the artists’ dedication to their work, reminding one of their courage and sense of adventure as they explored vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, determined to record features that captured their attention. The dangers of journeying through often unmapped or unsettled parts of the country, of falling ill, the difficulties in obtaining budgerows, palanquins, tents, and equipment, to say nothing of reliable servants and the uncertainties of the changing climate, especially during the monsoon, had to be considered before undertaking a journey. Above all, for drawing landscape subjects, the time of day, the position of the sun and cast shadows were of paramount importance to the artist.

One tends to forget these factors while looking at their pictures but by bearing them in mind, one can appreciate even more, William Hodges’ sentiments when he wrote in his Travels in

India (London, 1793): “I cannot close these pages without mentioning an intention which I

entertained, after my last journey, of undertaking another from the Ganges, through the Deccan,

to the western coast of India; and

to which

I should

recommend

to the attention

of

any artist who may be induced to visit India in future, with intentions similar to those which drew me away from my native country.” Hodges never undertook another journey to India but, as this volume demonstrates, many artists followed his example, producing a visual feast for more than a century. The editors are deeply grateful to Dr Pratapaditya Pal and Radhika Sabavala for this opportunity to edit another volume on the work of British artists in India. Once again it has been a great pleasure to work with the staff of Marg Publications — particularly the design and editorial teams who have been involved with this volume — for their invaluable suggestions and guidance throughout its preparation, We thank each of our contributors — Brian Allen, Patrick Conner, Toby Falk, Jenifer Glynn, Patricia Kattenhorn, Jerry Losty, Indar Pasricha, and Giles Tillotson, who have not

only devoted precious time researching and writing the articles, but have also greatly

assisted

in obtaining illustrations. To the people and institutions who have generously granted

permission for their pictures to be reproduced, we owe special thanks. Pictures from the following institutions have been included: The British Museum, London; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; Royal Institute of British Architects,

London; The Tate Gallery, London; Thomas Coram Foundation, London; Victoria and Albert Museum,

London;

Victoria

Memorial

Hall, Calcutta;

Yale

Center

for British Art, New

Haven.

The majority of pictures, however, are from The British Library, Oriental and India Office

Collections (formerly the India Office Library and Records), and we are especially grateful to

Jerry

Losty

and

Patricia

Kattenhorn

for all

their

help.

We

would

also

like

to

express

our

appreciation to Mildred Archer, Chris Beetles, S. P. Godrej, Charles Greig, Malcom and Ursula Horsman, Shirley Imray, Farooq Issa, Homi

of Bath, M.

Paramasivam,

Graham

Parlett,

Jal, Coomi Kapadia, Adrian Lipscomb, the Marquess

Linda Raymond,

Maurice Shelli

Deborah

Swallow,

and Mary Swarbreck. Acknowledgements are also included along with individual articles and illustrations. Above all, we thank our husbands, Roy and Jamshyd, without whose unfailing support we could not have completed the volume.

THE

EAST INDIA COMPANY’S SETTLEMENT PICTURES

GEORGE

LAMBERT

BRIAN

AND

SAMUEL

SCOTT

ALLEN

A commission that sends me to Scott is always an agreeable one, the little man is so attached to his art and so constantly improving in it. D. Wray to Lord Royston, September 25, 1750

Not until the last quarter of the eighteenth century did any British landscape painters of note actually visit India, and the work of some of these artists is discussed elsewhere in this volume. It was only after the 1750s and Lord Clive’s victories in Bengal, that India became sufficiently part of the British political consciousness to warrant any serious representation in art. The East India Company, the one organization with a vested interest in promoting a British view of India, was too commercially orientated to be an enlightened patron of the arts, but the Company's London headquarters in Leadenhall Street did eventually receive some lavish interior decoration,

which at least provided an example (alas, only rarely to be followed) for the few

public buildings which were to be erected in London later in the century.’ It is the set of landscape paintings of the East India Company's settlements, painted by George Lambert and Samuel Scott originally for the Directors’ Court Room at East India House in the early 1730s (now in the India Office Library and Records) that I wish to examine in this article, but it is worth reminding the reader that such a scheme was unusual at that early date.”

For the landscape painter in the early eighteenth century, the problem of patronage

was exacerbated by the fact that the genre had only really emerged comparatively recently. When, in 1649, Edward Norgate referred to landscape painting as that “harmless and honest recreation... [which]... diverts and lightens the mind”, he could

hardly have predicted that within a century, the genre would have developed to such an extent that it could begin to compete in popularity with the long established genres

of portrait

and

history

painting.»

At

the

end

of the

seventeenth

century,

landscape painting was dominated primarily by Dutch and Flemish artists whose

propensity for topographical views, often incorporating panoramic sweeps of the great English country estates with their owners engaged in sporting and hunting pursuits in the foreground, guaranteed a steady stream of patrons from the Royal

wv

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

L. View of Plymouth. Hendrik Danckaerts, signed and dated 1673 Oil on canvas, 101.5 x 172.8 centimetres. Courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

family downwards.’ Indeed, the series of bird’s eye views of Portsmouth, Plymouth, and other ports by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, Hendrik Danckaerts (some of which survive in the Royal Collection),’ are part of a commission from King Charles Il in the mid-1670s, to paint for the Palace of Whitehall, as Bainbrigge Buckridge pointed out, “all the Sea-Ports of England and Wales, as also all the Royal Palaces, which he perform’d admirably well” (figure 1). They form an_ interesting precedent for Lambert and Scott's efforts for the East India Company over half a century later. Mildred Archer has shown that the East India Company's public image, «at least as displayed in its Leadenhall Street premises, was consciously staid. Despite its prosperity being based partly on the export of wall-paper, furniture, porcelain textiles, and lacquered goods, there was little hint of a taste for such exotica in East India House Perhaps because a taste for Oriental goods and furnishings was considered whimsical

or somehow impermanent, nothing too overtly Indian or Chinese could be seen to invade the “safe” taste of its Directors, which must surely have heen devised essentially to impress its stockholders. Nothing could have been further from the frivolous

atmosphere

of, for example,

the

kind of hybrid Oriental architecture boxes and other garden buildings."

Vauxhall Gardens

A

ich in

of the

evi

1740s

1

where'a

supperypany’s

2. East India House, Pen, ink, and wash, Courtesy Department 3, East India House, Pen, ink, and wash,

Leadenhall Street, London. Probably by or after George Vertue, 1711 of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London. Leadenhall Street, London. Samuel Wale, circa 1760. 7.6 x 15.2 centimetres.

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

Directors, “sturdy common

sense dictated the architectural style of their offices, their

furniture, sculpture and pictures. Their first duty was to be sound, and to be sound they must appear to be British.”

EAST

INDIA

HOUSE

The Company's home from 1648 was an Elizabethan building known as Craven

House (figure 2), formerly the London house of Sir William Craven, father of the Earl

of Craven and Lord Mayor of London in 1610.’ By the early 1720s, this building was

not only decrepit (it was apparently in danger of collapse) but was also completely inadequate for the Company's growing business. It must also have looked extremely old-fashioned by that date, when the Palladian style of architecture was in the

ascendant. The building was hardly in keeping with the Company's increasingly confident image. The decision to rebuild their headquarters under these circumstances is scarcely surprising and, by the end of 1725, a committee had been appointed by the Company

to oversee the work.

On March 4, 1726, it was agreed to rebuild according to plans drawn up by Theodore Jacobsen. Jacobsen (died 1772) was perhaps a surprising choice as architect

since he was an amateur with, as far as is known, no body of architectural work to his name

to date.'° He was first and foremost a merchant

from a family of German

origin, which managed the London Steelyard on behalf of the Hanseatic merchants.

On the death in 1735 of his brother, Sir Jacob Jacobsen, Theodore became the senior

member of the family and continued to be active in the successful steelyard business.

None of Jacobsen's plans for the new building appear to have survived, so that there

are no means of determining if any parts of the old building remained and were incorporated

supervision

into the

of John

new

James

structure. (circa

Work

continued

1672-1746),

Surveyor

for several to

the

years

Clerk

under

of Works

the

at

Greenwich, until the new building was completed in June 1729 (figure 3). It was a comparatively unpretentious Palladian-style building. Faced with stone, it was five bays wide with a rusticated ground floor and a giant order of six Doric pilasters running through the first and second floors. An attic storey with segmental dormer

windows was partially disguised by a balustrade which ran the length of the building.

A couple of years after its completion, it was described by a writer under the assumed name

justice

of

“Don

Manuel

“to the grandeur

Gonzales’,

who

of the house

noted

within,

that

which

the

street

stqnds

frontage

upon

did

not

a great deal

do

of

ground, the offices and storehouse admirably well contrived, and the public hall and committee room scarce inferior to anything of the like nature in the City.”

When the

new building was complete, the Directors formally thanked Jacobsen for his assistance

and

in August

1730,

proposed

to

present

him

with

a piece

of plate worth

two

hundred guineas, which he afterwards exchanged at his own request, for a ring of equal value. This is almost certainly the ring worn by Jacobsen in the portrait by William

Hogarth,

executed

in 1742, which

in Oberlin College, Ohio, USA."

DIRECTORS’

is now

COURT

in the Allen Memorial

Art Museum

ROOM

Of the numerous large rooms for the Directors and spacious offices for the Clerks, the

most extravagantly decorated was the Directors’ Court Room, no doubt to reflect the growing status of the Company. This imposing room was dominated by an enormous

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

5. The Directors’ Court Room, East India House, Leadenhall Street, London ‘Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, circa 1820, Watercolour, 15.9 x 22.2 centimetres. ‘On the right hand of entry is the Court room, a most superb apartment,... A large folding door of polished mahogany, Corinthian columns, and appropriate enrichments occupies the centre of the north wall, On either side are mirrors, whose decorations are white and gold, The panels contain paintings of St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope... . The architrave, frieze, and cornice, are in very good proportion. The omaments of the ceiling are shells combined with scrolls. An uncommonly fine Turkey carpet Covers the floor quite 10 the walls.” (European Magazine, March 1803) 6. The Court Room of the Foundling Hoypital, London. 1745-47, The room is now installed in the Thomas Coram Foundation’s offices in Brunswick Square, London

7. Fort St George, Madras. Engraving by Elisha Kirkall, published 1734, after Lambert and Scott

marble chimneypiece and overmantel designed and executed by the Flemish sculptor,

John

Michael

Rysbrack

(1694-1770).

The

overmantel

contained

a marble

bas-relief

appropriately depicting “Britannia receiving the riches of the East” (figure 4), for which Rysbrack was paid £100 in 1730.'° As George Vertue,

that chronicler of the arts

in early eighteenth-century London, noted in 1729, it was “very beautifull & masterly done admir'd by all Artists & lovers of Art, this will remain a sample of Mr. Rysbrack skill to posterity”."* THE

SETTLEMENT

PICTURES

At some point soon after 1730 the landscape painter, George Lambert (1700-65), was

commissioned

to paint

the six landscapes

of the Company's

settlements

for the

Directors’ Court Room. It is not clear how these pictures were originally displayed in

the room, since no record of its appearance at this early date seems to have survived. Thomas Hosmer Shepherd's watercolour, which dates from about 1820 (figure 5), shows the room as it was after the extensive work of refacing the Leadenhall Street facade and refurbishment of the interiors had taken place in the late 1790s and the

first years of the new century, under the direction of successive Company Surveyors, Richard Jupp and Henry Holland. made to the Directors’ Court Room

As John Hardy has noted, alterations that were at this time included the introduction of six large

mirrors with frames ornamented with rosettes and projecting cornices supported on small scrolling brackets. The paintings by Lambert and Scott were reframed to match

8. Bombay. George Lambert and Samuel Scott, circa 1731-32. Oil on canvas, 81 x 132 centimetres. 9. Fon William, Calcutta, George Lambert and Samuel Scott, circa 1731-32 Oil on canvas, 81 x 132 centimetres.

9

10. Oil 11, il

Fort St George, Madras. George Lambert and Samuel Scott, circa 1731-32 on canvas, 81 x 132 centimetres. Tellicherry. George Lambert and Samuel Scott, circa 1731-32. on canvas, 81 x 152 centimetres.

10

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

and hung high, in the manner of overdoors, on either side of the elaborate pedimented

doorcases. It is more than likely that they occupied a similar position in the room before the redecoration, and the overall ensemble may therefore have provided a remarkable prototype for the much better known room, created in the mid-1740s, at

the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury. This was one of the very few other buildings known to have been designed by Theodore Jacobsen." In this splendid room, known as the Court Room, which was mercifully salvaged and reconstructed in the Thomas

Coram Foundation’s offices in Brunswick Square when the original hospital building was demolished in the 1920s, one can see a very similar arrangement of an elaborate Rysbrack chimneypiece and decorative paintings (figure 6). Since many of the founding governors of the Foundling Hospital were Directors of the East India Company, the coincidence is probably not accidental." The fledgling Foundling Hospital, anxious to attract wealthy

benefactors,

no doubt

sought

the kind of institutional respectability

that its governors and visitors enjoyed in other commercial walks of life. George Lambert was perhaps the natural choice as the artist to undertake this commission. By 1730 he was emerging as the leading native-born landscape painter.”

To date, most of his work had been for the theatre, and scenery painting remained a

source of income throughout his life. In 1730 Lambert worked primarily at Lincoln's

Inn Fields Theatre but, two years later, he followed John Rich to the newly built Covent Garden Theatre. It has been plausibly suggested by Elizabeth Einberg that the

commission from the East India Company may have been promoted by the Child family, who were prominent in the Company's affairs, but there is no evidence to support this. However, the Childs owned a number of pictures by Lambert which remained in the family’s collection until the sale of the contents of Wanstead House in 1822."*

The first notice of the appearance

of the Lambert paintings in

East India House is

the reference by George Vertue in his notebook in 1732 to “six pictures of the principal Forts & settlements belonging to the East India Company having lately been set up

in their house

in Leadenhall

Street the

buildings

and

Landschape

part by

Mr. Lambert and the shipping by Mr. Scot.” Their purchase is recorded in the Minutes of the Court of Directors (in the India Office Records) for November 1, 1732,

wherein it was “Ordered that the Secretary do pay Mr. George Lambert £94. 10s for Six Pictures of the Forts &tc. for the Court Room at fifteen Guineas per Picture as per agreement.”

The

Court

Minutes

for

November

2,

1733

record

that

“Mr.

Lambert

requesting leave of the Court to take copys of the pictures of the Company's settlements

in India Order’d that it be referr'd to the Committee of the House to give directions as they think fit.” It is not clear if this request was granted, but Elizabeth Einberg has

suggested that a replica of the painting of Fort St George, Madras, purchased for the Madras Government Council Chamber in 1911, may have come from a repeat set

made on this occasion, and Mildred Archer points out that a replica of the Cape of

Good

Hope

is in the Fehr collection ENGRAVINGS

Some

BY

in South

KIRKALL

Africa.”

AND

VANDERGUCHT

indication of the interest that the pictures aroused can be measured

from the

appearance, within a short time, of two sets of engravings. On December 18, 1734, John Bowles obtained the Court's permission to “make Copys” after the set of paintings.

These “Copys” probably have no relationship to the set of mezzotint

engravings after the pictures by Elisha Kirkall (figures 7 and 12), published in that year, but it is more than likely that they were modelos for the second set of prints by

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

1

Gerard Vandergucht, which were published on April 19, 1736 (figure 13). It may well

be that Bowles was dissatisfied in some way with Kirkall’s mezzotints after the pictures and sought permission for Lambert and Scott to draw copies for the second

set engraved by Vandergucht in the more durable medium of line engraving. The letterpress on the later series states that the images were “Painted and Delineated” by Lambert and Scott, and they are undoubtedly more faithful renderings of the original paintings than Kirkall's. This second set was very extensively advertised in the press.

On January 1, 1736 (several months before publication), Vandergucht’s prints were

first advertised in The London Daily Post and General Advertiser as sold by subscription for a guinea and a half (the same price as Hogarth's Rake’s and Harlot’s Progress). This advertisement was repeated eight times in that month. Interestingly, on January 27, this announcement appeared alongside another for Kirkall’s already available prints, which were being offered at the print shops of Thomas and John Bowles for just fifteen shillings.” Since neither Lambert nor Scott visited India, it must be assumed

that their pictures were based on information supplied by the Company, although the sometimes peremptory treatment of background detail suggests that they may not have had access to extensive topographical detail. Nevertheless, given their early date,

they survive as an important landmark of Anglo-Indian topography. The format employed by Lambert is essentially that of the country-house view, a well-established

landscape genre by the 1730s, but here applied to unfamiliar territory. BOMBAY

Turning first to the view of Bombay (figure 8), one sees in the centre of the composition a large white building with a tall arched entrance surmounted by a coat

of arms. It is that marked on Grose’s map of about 1750 as “The Bunder or Company's Wharehouses”

which,

considerably

altered

in the late nineteenth century,

survives as

part of the Old Custom House. On the right, the Union flag can be seen flying from the ramparts of Bombay’ Castle, whilst among the ships in the foreground — in this as in the other canvases, the work of Samuel Scott — is a vessel with a triangular sail

flying the Company’s colours with their red and white horizontal bars. Bombay had been given to King Charles II by King Alphonso VI of Portugal as part of the dowry

of

his

sister,

Catherine

of

Braganza.

Although

the

city’s

early

history

is

chequered — in 1683-84, it was occupied for nearly a year by English mutineers and “pirates” — its fine deep-water harbour with ready access to the Arabian Sea and coastal trade routes soon helped to bolster the commercial community. Its prosperity

was assured in the last decades of the eighteenth century when the city began to act as an entrepét for trade to China besides other commercial activities.”

FORT WILLIAM,

CALCUTTA

Perhaps the most impressive of the six views and the earliest known picture of the city, is that of Fort William, Calcutta (figure 9), with Scott’s masterly painted ships on

the River Hooghly, three of which are firing salutes. Behind them can be seen the river face of the Fort (completed by 1712) with its two lines of ramparts protecting Government House. No source for Lambert's picture has been identified but it must

have been a comparatively recent one at that time, since the spire of St Anne’s Church

which was not completed until 1716, is clearly visible; in addition, the distinctive

tower on Long Row (a low building running east-west which divided the Fort) was

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

12

12. Tellicherry, Engraving by Elisha Kirkall, published 1734, after Lambert and Scott

not built until 1727. The steeple on St Anne's Church survived only a few years after

the picture was painted, for it was overwhelmed by the cyclone which struck Calcutta on the night of October 12, 1737. The remainder of the church was destroyed during the fighting in June 1756.J. P. Losty has suggested that the plans of Fort William,

which were sent to London every year between 1709 and 1714, may have been used

by Lambert, but none of these survives as evidence.” In the distant left is the old Portuguese Church, and on the left can also be seen the small river-gate by which Siraj ud-Daulah entered Fort William after its capture. Although it was later to become

the second city of the British Empire, it was not until about 1720 that the extra productivity of Bengal’s weavers and the opportunity for trade up the rivers Ganges

and Jumna began to work in Calcutta’s favour. By 1760, the city's population was well

over 100,000 and it subsequently became the seat of the Governor-General and of the

army and naval commands.”

FORT

ST GEORGE,

MADRAS

Although it was described by Alexander Hamilton at the end of the seventeenth century as “one of the most incommodious places I ever saw”, the southern city of

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

13

13. Tellicherry. Engraving by Gerard Vandergucht, published 1736, after Lambert and Scott

Madras still managed to prosper.’ The English established themselves there in 1640 and Fort St George soon began to rise above the flat landscape.

To the dismay of the

Company, it cost a fortune to build and took fourteen years. Eventually the Fort was assimilated into the so-called “Black Town” with its large cosmopolitan population of Tamil and Telugu-speaking merchants, Armenians, and Indo-Portuguese. Although in the early eighteenth century the city flourished as an exporter of fine Madras cloth to

South-East Asia and Europe, by 1800 it had lost its pre-eminence to Bombay.’ In the case of the view of Fort St George (figure 10), it has been suggested by H. D. Love

that Lambert based his composition on an inset in the engraving of A Prospect of Fort

St George and Plan of the City of Madras, Actually surveyed by order of the late

Governor. Tho. Pitt Esqr. by John Harris of about 1710.” Although there appears to be ction, Lambert, as Richard Kingzett has pointed out, may well have used other

Sea Gate,

ce he makes changes of detail which do not appear in Harris's

the east wall and batteries, the Round

Point, the Town

map.

The

Hall, and the flag

tower of St Mary's Church (consecrated in 1680, and the first church built by the British in India) all follow Harris's prospect fairly closely. However, the details of the

inner areas of Fort St George are less well resolved and Lambert appears to have

introduced several non-existent round towers. As Kingzett noted, the north wall is

shown buttressed but without gateways and the range of hills in the

background is a

picturesque embellishment.” To confuse the matter further, Elisha Kirkall’s engraving

(from the first series issued in 1734), which is described

‘done after the painting in

the Court Room” in the letterpress dedication, is significantly more topographically accurate

without

the erroneous

round

towers

and

background

hills (see figure 7).

It

14

14. Oil 15. Ol

Cape of Good Hope. George Lambert and Samuel Scott, circa 1731-32 on canvas, 81 x 132 centimetres, St Helena. George Lambert and Samuel Scott, circa 1731-32 on canvas, 81 x 132 centimetres,

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

is, of course, entirely possible that both Harris’s and Lambert’s views derive from

some other common source, Because of the more elevated viewpoint, the overall effect in this instance is not unlike the many “prospects” of towns drawn and

engraved by the immensely prolific brothers, Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, at about this date.

TELLICHERRY

In addition to the larger settlements at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay,

the Company

controlled several trading stations on India’s west coast. Karwar, Anjengo, and Tellicherry were each controlled from Bombay and the pepper and cardamom trade was the mainstay of all three.” For Tellicherry to have been chosen as the subject of one of Lambert and Scott's paintings, it must have been important. The Company had established a factory there towards the end of the seventeenth century and a fort was built about 1708. By 1776, when trade had diminished considerably, the station was

reduced to a residency but in 1784, it was restored to its former rank until the factory was finally closed ten

rs later.

Lambert and Scott's view of Tellicherry (figure 11, see also figures 12 and 13) is

perhaps

the

least

impressive

of the

six,

in

part

because

of the

comparatively

undistinguished buildings. A few houses stand near the shore behind the large open-

fronted goods shed. To the left, in front of a wooded hill, the Fort can be seen with

the Union Jack flying from a bastion. Nearer to the shore is a walled compound extending to the sea. Two of the three foreground ships fly English colours and a variety of other small vessels complete the scene. CAPE OF GOOD

HOPE

AND

ST HELENA

The two remaining pictures in the series depict the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena (figures 14 and 15). As early as 1652, a permanent station was established at

the Cape, but the first real settlers were Dutch." Throughout the seventeenth century, despite the often bitter rivalries between the Dutch and British East India Companies over

territories

in the

East, at the

Cape

and

St Helena,

the

ship

crews

of both

companies generally amicably exchanged news and provisions. It has been pointed out that Lambert's composition

of the Cape

of Good

Hope

seems

to be based

on

Amnouldt Smit’s painting of Table Bay, dating from about 1683 and now in the Fehr collection in Cape Town. The compositions appear to be too close for coincidence with both the background and the shipping approximately the same in both pictures. Table Mountain is the most dominant feature, flanked by two other tall hills. On the

shore a walled fort is clearly visible, from which flies the Dutch flag; to the right is another fortified building, behind which are warehouses and other buildings. Although most of the ships are flying Dutch colours, in the foreground, a British Red Ensign is

visible flying from the stern of the vessel which is signifying its arrival by saluting. Although St Helena was of no real commercial significance to the Company, by

the early eighteenth century its value was largely strategic and this seems to be the prime reason for persisting with loss-making establishments such as this.” With the

Dutch well established at the Cape and the French laying claim to the nearby islands of Mauritius and Réunion, St Helena became the Company's only safe haven on the direct route between India and England. Presumably, this is the reason for its depiction in

the

series.

Lambert's

view

shows

the

island

as

seen

from

the

north-west,

with

GEORGE LAMBERT AND SAMUEL SCOTT

16

Jamestown,

the principal

settlement and

seat of government,

in the centre of the

picture. The British flag is prominently flown from the centre bastion of the fortifications,

which nestle under Rupert's Hill on the left and Ladder Hill to the right. It would be imprudent to make an exaggerated case for the overall

aesthetic

value of this series of paintings, but their execution a full half-century before the efforts of William Hodges and the Daniells, who actually visited most of these sites, gives them a position of historical importance in the development of landscape painting in early eighteenth-century England that should not be underestimated.

NOTES 1. See Mildred Archer, “The East India Company and British Art", Apollo, XXXII, November 1965, pp. 401-09. 2. Much of the topographical information has been taken from Mildred Archer, The India Office Collection of Paintings and Sculpture, London, 1986, pp. 69-72. 3. See “The Late Version of Edward Norgate’s Miniatura’ in H. and M. Ogden, English Taste in Landscape in the Seventeenth Century, Ann Arbor, 1955, p. 11 4, See John Harris, The Artist and the Country House, A History of Country House and Garden View Painting in Britain 1540-1870, London, 1979. 5. Oliver Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 2 vols., London, 1963, vol. 1, pp. 153-55, cat. nos. 398-400. 6, Bainbrigge Buckridge, An Essay Towards an English School of Painters, London, 1706, p. 367. 7. Archer, op. cit, 1965, p. 401 8. See T. J. Edelstein and Brian Allen, Vauxhall Gardens, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1983, 9. William Foster, The East India House, London, 1924, pp. 22-39 10. See Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1660-1840, 2nd edition, London, 1978, pp. 450-51 11. Quoted by Foster, op. cit., pp. 132-33. 12. See Benedict Nicholson, The Treasures of the Foundling Hospital, Oxford, 1972, pp. 15-16; repr. pl. 18. 13. In addition to Mildred Archer, op. cit., 1965, p. 402, the decoration of this room has been examined in my article “From Plassey to Seringapatam: India and British History Painting c. 1760-c. 1800°, in C. J. Bayly (ed.), The Raj. India and the British 1600-1947, London: National Portrait Gallery, 1990, pp. 26-37. 14, George Vertue, “Notebooks”, The Walpole Society, XXII, 1933-34, p. 37. 15, John Hardy, India Office Furniture, London, 1982, pp. 7-8 A description of the interior of East India House appeared in the European Magazine of March 1803. For the Foundling Hospital Court Room see Nicholson, op. cit, pp. 11-19. 16. For a register of governors from the foundation in 1739 see R. H. Nichols and F. A. Wray, The History of the Foundling Hospital, London, 1935, pp. 344-415. 17, See Elizabeth Einberg, George Lambert 1700-1765, Kenwood: Iveagh Bequest, 1970. 18. Ibid, p. 18, 19. Vertue, op. cit. p. 63. 20. Binberg, op. cit., p. 13. An oil painting of Fort St George, relating closely in composition (and in size) to the painting by Lambert and Scott but signed “C. Brooking Pinx", was sold at Christie's on November 11, 1994. 21. See Richard Kingzett, “A Catalogue of the Works of Samuel Scott", The Walpole Society, XLVI, 1980-82, pp. 69-70, and Emma Armstrong, “Hoganh’s Subscription Tickets and the Advertising of Prints from 1730 to 1745 unpublished M. A. Report, University of London, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1993, p. 15, 22. See S. M. Edwardes, The Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, 3 vols, Bombay, 1909; (reprint. Pune, 1977) and Bayly, op. cit, p. 76. . 23. J. P. Losty, Calculta-City of Palaces. A Survey of the City in the Days of the East India Company 1690-1858, London: The British Library, 1990, pp. 20-21 24, Bayly, op. cit., p. 106. 25. Alexander Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies, Edinburgh, 1727, quoted by John Keay in The Honourable Company. A History of the English East India Company, London, 1991, p. 69 26. Bayly, op. cit.. p. 106. 27. H. D. Love, Vestiges of Old Madras 1640-1800, 3 vols., plus index vol, London, 1913, vol. 2, p. 95. 28. See Kingzett, op. cit,, p. 71 29. Loc. cit 30. Keay, op. cit, p. 251 31. Ibid., p. 93. 32, Ibid., p. 250. FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Figures 3-5 and 7-15 courtesy India Office Library and Records (QIOC), The British Library. London,

17

SKETCHING

FROM

NATURE

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA PATRICIA

KATTENHORN

Military men have frequently a considerable quantity of spare time on their hands ... . Those who have a taste for drawing will find an inexhaustible source of amusement, and should lose no opportunity whatever in obtaining proficiency in sketching from nature. Emma

Roberts,

The East India

Voyager,

1839

In 1787 four British Army regiments were raised specifically for service in India and

the pattern of the military was thus established, with Royal regiments serving alongside those of the East India Company. By 1824, there were twenty-seven cavalry and

nearly two hundred infantry regiments in the three Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay,

and Madras. The King's troops were considered to take precedence over the Company's army in India, and a succession of regiments would serve for spells of duty for anything up to twenty years. Between military duties and infrequent furloughs, day-to-day life could be tedious. Armies spent many weeks on the march, setting up camp along the way, the rest periods thus providing much leisure time. In towns, the monotony was relieved

by a busy round of balls, theatricals, and riding, but in camp, soldiers generally had to

find their own entertainment. Much advice was available on how to pass the time. In his

Hints to Cadets, Thomas

that “music, drawing and appreciated as the great

Postans,

then

a lieutenant

in the

Bombay

Army,

wrote

resources of all and every kind are available and to be barriers to the mischief which always results from the

absence of such means of passing time in India”! Emma Roberts warmed rather sternly that “military men have frequently a considerable quantity of spare time upon their

hands.

It is therefore

of infinate

[sic]

importance

to the

youth

who

has

obtained a cadetship, that he should cultivate and encourage some useful pursuit... ."?

Numerous sketches, drawings, watercolours, engravings, and oil paintings survive as evidence of the artistic activities and skills of the soldiers serving in India. The largest

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

18

single collection of their works is in the India Office Library and Records. Here, ten

officers from various army backgrounds, with an example of each of their works, have been selected for discussion.

Drawing was considered an important accomplishment for the middle and upper

classes from the mid-eighteenth century onwards and the number of drawing masters

in London, for example, increased from a handful in the 1750s to several hundred by

the end of the century. Thus, the British travelling to India had usually received some artistic instruction

enabling

them

to record

the

landscape

and

people,

as well

as

details of their own lives and work. Some wrote lyrically of their impressions of the country. For example, Charles Ramus Forrest, who while serving with the 3rd Regiment

of Foot made charming studies that were published as A Picturesque Tour along the

Rivers Ganges and Jumna in 1824, wrote: “The drawings were all attentively copied

from nature and in many instances coloured on the Spot, and always while the magic effects of the scenes

represented

were

still impressed

on his mental

vision ... the

enchanting features of India, eternally glowing in the brilliant glory of the resplendent Asiatic sun.”>

If drawing was a desirable pastime for the upper classes, it was an essential skill for the military. Maps, precise topographical drawings, and detailed studies and plans of buildings were needed for official reports. Many were required to keep field-books while they were on the march and to submit them regularly. The military academies in England generally appointed experienced

professional artists to teach the cadets.

From the mid-eighteenth century, the British Army employed professional drawingmasters

at the

Royal

Military

Academy

at Woolwich

and

later at the Engineering

College, Chatham and the Military College, Marlow. Even John Constable was offered

a post at Marlow but declined, feeling temperamentally unsuited to teaching. John Fayram, the portrait and landscape artist, was appointed first drawing master at

Woolwich and the leading watercolourist, Paul Sandby, who had been draughtsman to the Board of Ordnance Survey of the Scottish Highlands, was appointed to the same post in 1768. The British Army military colleges were all transferred to Sandhurst by 1813 and when entry was decided on merit from 1845, the entrance examination

included a compulsory test in drawing. The East India Company's cadets were expected to reach the same standards of education as their counterparts in the King’s troops and, after an unsatisfactory

attempt at sharing training facilities, the Company founded its own Military Academy at Addiscombe

in 1809

(figure

1).

Between

its founding

and

closure

in 1861,

about

three thousand five hundred cadets spent two years at the college, all being taught

to draw as part of the curriculum. William Frederick Wells, a founder in 1804 of the

first Watercolour Society, was Professor of Drawing at Addiscombe from 1812 until 1836 and was succeeded by John Christian Schetky, who taught there until 1877. His

students called him “All Sepia” because of his penchant for the medium.

The Fielding family of artists, several of whom were involved in the production

of engravings

of India, were

also teachers.

When

civil drawing

was

introduced

at

Addiscombe, the first master (later Professor) of Civil Drawing was Theodore Henry Fielding, brother of Copley Fielding. He also published a number of books on art theory, including On the Theory of Painting. William Prinsep, a Calcutta merchant and prolific amateur artist, noted that he had benefited from working alongside his soldier brother Thomas,

who

had studied under

Fielding at Addiscombe.

brother, Thales, taught drawing at Woolwich. The Addiscombe

Another Fielding

records include a reference to “Boxes of Colors (Two)

to be

provided for the use of Cadets, — One of Moist for Civil Drawing; and One of Cake

Colors, 8 in number, with brushes and English ink for plans and sections at 2s/6d Per

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

:

Sf Clima

box

his

19

prevented to him ly tec Hiv Cou

Sf he United

&

Sf Lireclory

CastIplia Comparys >

wa Mak ¥ dhe lourls YY brotalion oS: tes, Condud while in lhe Companyh- Military , Seminary.

and tis a

y

sipertor allainmenl

erhibited al the Lublic

on

Che

x

tn Gg

Ze

raning

eauminalion?

182

1. Front View of Addiscombe Military Academy. John Le Mesurier, Bombay Engineers, 1853, Watercolour, 21 x 33.5 centimetres, 2. Silver Presentation Paintbox, hallmarked 1821

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

20

box”. Outstanding students were presented with prizes of silver boxes of colours

(figure 2), and Thomas Studdert of the Bombay Engineers, treasured his prize so much

that he left not only his sketch-books, but also his prize paintbox to his sister in his will. The importance placed on drawing by the military is also reflected in a touching

letter written in 1809 by Lieutenant-Colonel Tredway Clarke, of the Madras Army. It

concemed

his

son,

about

whom

he

wrote

that,

“in case

the

Boy

shows

a natural

genius and inclination for drawing, I am desirous it should be encouraged by his beginning under a proper Master — as the qualification may hereafter be of great use to him in the army”. FRANCIS

SWAIN

WARD

(1734-94)

A few military artists do not conform to this general background, the most significant

being Francis Swain Ward of the Madras Army. He was bom in 1734 at Kingstonupon-Thames near London, the son of a landowner, Thomas Ward. He received

training as a professional landscape painter, but possibly through lack of success as

an artist, he applied to the East India Company for a cadetship and was admitted in

1757. As a young lieutenant he resigned his commission, due to resentment at being

overlooked for promotion, and retumed to England in 1764. He exhibited with the Society of Artists between 1765 and 1773. Still, it seems, financially unsuccessful he approached the Company for permission to rejoin the army and after some hesitation, the Board of Directors acceded.

While in England, Ward produced a series of landscapes based on his Indian

sketches and, following his reappointment in 1773 as a captain in the Madras Army, he presented ten oil paintings to the Company.

He was rewarded

handsomely and

the works were framed and displayed in the Company's headquarters, East India House

in London.

Painted

in the classical style,

these

paintings

are important

for

predating the work of the earliest professional landscape painter to travel to India —

‘William Hodges, who arrived in 1780. One of these, showing the Rock of Trichinopoly, is in effect Ward's most vividly realistic painting (figure 3). The rock, crowned with temples, is viewed from the south, with the buildings at its base carefully drawn

in

perspective. The sense of reality is further heightened by the lively procession and occasional soldiers in the foreground. His other paintings in this collection also depict architectural monuments, mainly in South India (see also pages 31-52). ROBERT

HYDE

COLEBROOKE

(1762-1808)

‘As with Ward’s pictures, many eighteenth-century drawings and paintings by both

professional and amateur artists are important because they often provide information about the condition of architectural sites or structures at this period. The tower at

Gaur, for example, painted by Robert Hyde Colebrooke in 1794, shows the building in a state of picturesque

disrepair

(figure

4). Colebrooke

had

the opportunity

to

explore the ruins at Gaur while surveying various parts of the River Ganges in Bengal

The delicate watercolour shows the tower in isolation surrounded by lush vegetation.

Foliage is also visible growing out of the ruined tower itself, which was not finally

restored until 1904-06 under the direction of archaeologist Sir John Marshall. Colebrooke, who was born in Switzerland, went to India as a cadet in the Bengal

Army. He had an outstanding career and was appointed Surveyor-General of Bengal

in 1794, a post he held until his death at Bhagalpur in 1808. Throughout his thirty

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

21

H aT

f

3. The Rock at Trichinopoly, with a View of the Military Barracks Francis Swain Ward, Madras Army, circa 1772-73, Oil on canvas, 71 x 109.5 centimetres

years of service, he remained in India. A set of engravings after his drawings,

however,

was

published

in London

in 1794.

Titled

Twelve

Views of Places in the

Kingdom of Mysore, the Country of Tippoo Sultan, they were based on studies which

he made while surveying the army routes in Mysore in 1791-92. The prints were so popular that they appeared in four separate editions, the last being published in Paris in

1812.

THOMAS

SYDENHAM

(1780-1816)

Numerous examples can be found of soldiers’ drawings, which were made during or after frequent military campaigns. If the event became celebrated, as did the Mysore Wars and obviously Tipu Sultan, they might be published as prints. In some cases, a Thomas

sional artist in England would be commissioned

to render the subject in oils.

Sydenham’s rather modest watercolour of the Hoally Gate at Seringapatam,

scene of the death of Tipu Sultan,

reflects the enormous contemporary interest in him

(figure 5). The gateway in the centre of his composition is further highlighted by being in sunshine, while the surrounding buildings are in shadow. Sydenham made

the drawing while involved in survey work during the Fourth Mysore War in 1799,

22

4, Tower among Ruins, Gaur Robert Hyde Colebrooke, Bengal Native Infantry, 1794. Watercolour, 43.8 x 34.3 centimetres,

5. View of the Hoally Gateway, Seringapatam, Thomas Sydenham, Madris Engineers, 1799, 7.3 centimetres,

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

23

6, Waterfall of the Purwar River, near Haliyal (Western India) with the Artist Sketching in the Foreground, John Johnson, Bombay Engineers, 1801. Watercolour, 26.7 x 42.5 centimetres.

which ended with the death of Tipu. Although this drawing was never published, its border and inscription suggest that Sydenham might have prepared it for engraving.

Many engraved works, produced after Tipu’s defeat, were based on such drawings by

participants

in

the

events.

These

episodes

attracted

such

public

appeal

that

the

production of pictures and written accounts continued for many decades and, even as late as 1847, a prize-winning piece by R. H. Stotherd, a cadet at Woolwich, depicted

the capture of Seringapatam.

JOHN

JOHNSON

(CIRCA

1769-1846)

Pictures by soldier artists made while off duty sometimes have a special charm. They

occasionally

include

a self-portrait

in their drawings

and

although

seldom

a clear

likeness, it lends a personal immediacy to the drawing. John Johnson, for example, painted himself in his military redcoat with hair neatly powdered, in his watercolour of a waterfall near Haliyal in 1801 (figure 6). Johnson had arrived in India in 1784 as

a cadet in the Bombay

Engineers and later impressed Sir Arthur Wellesley

with his

skill at engineering defence works during the Deccan campaign of 1803. He left India on furlough in 1817, and travelled to England overland via Persia and Russia. Just before

retiring in 1819, he published an account of his travels illustrated from his own drawings.” His watercolour comes from a sketch-book of views mainly of Western India and

Mysore, and bears an inscription describing this particular landscape: “Waterfall in Soonda

of the Purwar

River, about

4 miles S.

W.

of Hullyhall

taken

in the dryest

24

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

» the Chaitya Cave Temple of Karle. Byers, Bombay Infantry ur, 43.8 x 32 centimetres

25

8 View of Chittagong showing the Houses of Major-General Ellerker, Bengal Army and Dr Robert Wilson, Civil Surgeon. James Crockatt, Bengal Army Watercolour, 40 x 52 centimetres

9. View of Lucknow. Ezekiel Barton, Bengal Native Infantry. Watercolour, 35.5 x 45.5 centimetres,

26

10. The Periyar Pass, South of Cannanore Thomas Cussans, Madras Anillery, circa 1820. Watercolour, 10.2 x 53.2 centimetres.

season. Coln Johnson was at Hully Hull 1801. This picture is said to represent himself.” This small powerful study with its bold depiction of rocks, flowing water, distant hillsides, and foliage was clearly meant to be simply a private visual memento of Johnson's visit to the spot JAMES

BROFF

BYERS

(1785-1870)

It is almost certain that even as lively a drawing as Johnson's waterfall would have been

worked up later from sketches taken on the spot. It was customary to make the first sketch from nature and then, if so desired, complete it later or prepare a finished version

in watercolours. As an inscription on the reverse of a watercolour by James Broff Byers of

the cave temple of Karle near Poona, explains: “The original sketch from which I have

now made this drawing was taken on my first visit to this wonderful spot in Decr. 1805. Shooters Hill 1815.” The finished watercolour heightened with white (figure 7) was thus made some ten years later, while Byers was on leave in London. It was based on sketches

that he had made during the final weeks of a survey, between June 1804 and December 1805, of the route being taken by an army division through Malwa and Rajasthan. At this time Byers was a lieutenant in the Bombay Infantry, having been in India for four years. Subsequently, due to ill health, he spent long periods in England and was permitted to

retire from the army in 1819, when he was ordained into the Church.

His vivid watercolour

depicts the facade of the celebrated main chaifya cave temple and lion pillar, with local

people and soldiers in the foreground. JAMES

CROCKATT

(1755/56-1804)

India’s distance from Europe was a cause of heartache and homesickness for many soldiers, but must have come as some relief for those who wished to escape from problems at home. James Crockatt, who was described by William Hickey as “a

27

dissipated London dasher”,’ squandered his fortune and escaped his creditors by

securing a commission in the service of the East India Company. Thus, in 1780, at the age of twenty-four

he sailed

for India

on

board

the

Hillsborough

a cadet

in the

Bengal Army. Although the ship was captured by combined French and Spanish fleets

off the coast of Africa, and Crockatt spent some months as a prisoner back in Spain, he

eventually

arrived

in

Bengal

in October

1781.

He

served

with

the

9th

Native

Infantry, rising to the rank of captain. He fought in the Second Mahratta War and was

killed

in battle on

the

banks

of the

River

Banas

in August

1804.

Crockatt's

view

of

Chittagong, with the somewhat foppish artist and his patient servants in the foreground, one of whom seems to be holding a portable punkah, was painted in 1801 (figure 8). It also vividly depicts two official European-style residences overlooking the river, then belonging to Major-General Edward Ellerker, and to Civil Surgeon Robert Wilson.

EZEKIEL

BARTON

(1781-1855)

Soldier artists such as Crockatt often sketched minor sites and subjects that caught their attention. Unlike the professional landscape artists, they were in general not

primarily influenced by the prevailing style of landscape art or by the importance of

the subject.

The same can be said of Ezekiel Barton, about whose delicate drawings

John Hodgson of the Surveyor-General’s Department, wrote: “Lt. Barton . is exceeded by no one as a Draft

either in taking views, or giving to Maps and Plans an

exquisitely beautiful finish.”* Barton began his long military career in the Bengal Army

as an infantry cadet in 1799, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-General. He was employed as Assistant Surveyor to John Hodgson (later Surveyor-General of India),

who had specifically asked for him, and was posted to Nepal and Garhwal in 1814-15.

Barton's general view of Lucknow, an atmospheric and delicately finished study in pencil and grey washes, includes the palace of Saadat Ali Khan (ruled 1798-1814),

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

28

which reflects his interest in European

architecture (figure 9). It also includes other

palace complexes overlooking the Gumti. Although Barton's official work was surveying,

this drawing was clearly made for pleasure. It comes from an album (now dispersed) of similar studies by him that included other places in the United Provinces. One

of

these, a view near Delhi, is dated March 1814. Some of the drawings depict well-

known monuments such as the Red Fort in Delhi, but the majority are unidentified buildings and village scenes. Above all, they bear the hallmarks of his personal and distinctive style, his precision, sensitivity for the medium of pencil, and the monochrome tonal washes conveying light and atmosphere. THOMAS

CUSSANS

(1796-1830)

Finished watercolours by amateur artists were, like the work of professionals, usually kept in portfolios or laid down in albums. Not all drawings were on a large scale, however, many appearing in sketch-books small enough to carry in a pocket or pouch. Thomas

Cussans filled a litte album with intricate landscapes and studies of

plants; despite its size, he included an astonishing painting of the Periyar Pass resembling an illustration to some fabulous journey (figure 10). The double-page image includes an extended foreground with rocks, a village amid lush foliage, the middle distance, the mountains, and sky shown in graphic, vividly colourful detail. The panoramic view has also been carefully composed and framed by hillsides on the extreme left and right. The artist, an officer in the Madras Artillery, was born in 1796 at St Marylebone, London, and served in India for nine years before returning to London on furlough. When he failed to return to India at the end of his leave, he was struck off the army strength in 1823. ARCHIBALD

ARNOTT

(1803-46)

‘A watercolour very different in style, but obviously made in similar circumstances during a rest period while on the march, depicts a roadside pool near Surat. It was made by Archibald Amott, a surgeon attached to the Bombay Army (figure 11). This

is a carefully composed study of local travellers with their various bullock-carts halting

in the shade of the trees beside a rest-house. Although it is the kind of scene that the

artist may have encountered anywhere during his travels, he has depicted this particular

roadside

image

in a most

picturesque

manner.

A Scot

from

Dumfriesshire,

belonged to a medical family. He died near Baroda at the age of forty-three. WILLIAM

WONNACOTT

Amott

(1841-78)

Soldier artists found endless scope for sketching an enormous range of subjects in India, and their interest and enthusiasm continued well into the nineteenth century.

Even during the latter years of the century, the importance of art and other leisure

pursuits was

reflected in the number

of art societies that were

set up locally, with

prizes awarded by committees. One recipient of several awards was a school teacher

attached to the British Army, William Wonnacott of the 8th Regiment of Foot. He and

his family were posted to India

in 1868 after two years’ service in Malta. His wife,

Emily, was filled with apprehension and wrote to her mother: “I quite dread going. 1 seem to have a presentiment ... about it.”? Within four years, two infants had been born

and

buried,

and

Emily

herself was

dead.

Wonnacott

sent

his two

surviving

29

mbay Native Infantry 1, 37 x 54 centimetres. 12. Pahari Vill

nent of Foot, 1875.

SOLDIER ARTISTS IN INDIA

children to England and occupied himself in the solace that drawing and painting offered. His watercolour of a Pahari village in the Himalayan foothills was painted in July 1875 (figure 12). It vividly depicts the hill-top houses and bungalows nestling in the valley, while a villager tends his cattle in the foreground. Less than three years later, on October 6, 1878, Wonnacott himself died during the passage home from Aden and was buried at sea. Army school teachers occupied an uneasy position between officers and other ranks, poorly paid and not fully accepted in either camp. Although Wonnacott’s social

position was problematic in the hierarchical structure of the army, the position of the

enlisted men was often one of real hardship. In his Advice to Officers in India, John McCosh

wrote:

indulgences

“If officers, with all the resources

of easy circumstances,

so often

of refined education,

fall victims

to ennui,

what

and all the

must

be the

situation of the private soldier whose life during half the year is little better than solitary confinement.”

Despite this unpromising background, drawings by private soldiers are known, made at a time when many could neither read nor write. Examples of the work of Robert Temple, a copper-plate worker in Glasgow before enlisting in the British Army

as a bandsman, are in the collections, along with watercolours by Patrick Lysaght, a labourer from Cork, who joined the 78th Foot as a private in 1826.

Surprisingly, soldiers continued to draw and paint after the advent of photography, although formal lessons in military draughtsmanship were no longer necessary. Their paintings, along with those of other amateurs, afford a glimpse of the lives and interests

of the

many

Europeans

stationed

in the subcontinent

during

the British

period. They also provide an especially rich source of pictorial information about the topography, buildings, environment, and landscape of India. NOTES 1. T. Postans, Hints to Cadets, London, 1842, p. 40. 2. E, Robenss, The East India Voyager, London, 1839, p. 118. 3. C. R. Forrest, A Picturesque Tour along the Rivers Ganges and Jumna in India, London, 1824, p. iv. 4. Manuscript history of Addiscombe Military Seminary, L/MIL/9/357, p. 140. 5. Letter of 1809 from Lieutenant-Colonel Tredway Clarke (1764-1858), Madras Army, Photo Eur 219, f. 46. 6. J. Johnson, A Journey from India to England, London, 1818. 7. A. Spencer (ed.), Memoirs of William Hickey, 4 vols., London, 1919-25, vol. 3, p. 210. 8. John Hodgson in R. H. Phillimore, The Historical Records of the Survey of India, 5 vols., Dehra Dun, 1945-68, vol. 2, p. 381 9. Wonnacott family correspondence, MSS Eur C 376/1 f. 171v. 10. J. McCosh, Advice to Officers in India, London, 1856, pp. 109-10. FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS All illustrations courtesy the India Office Library and Records (O10), The British Library, London.

31

PREFACE

TO

A LOST

COLLECTION

THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD PAULINE

ROHATGI

Could I get to Madura I should esteem myself happy as that place and its Neighbourhood affords more Beauties of Nature and Art than perhaps any other place in India. F. S. Ward to Robert Orme,

November 4, 1777

In 1785, the antiquarian Richard Gough published a book titled A Comparative View

of the Antient Monuments of India. In its preface, he criticized the lack of interest in

the great temples of India by the British, as compared with that of other European nations: “It intends to give a comparative view, not only of what has been said on the

subject by inquisitive foreigners, but of the different subjects themselves in different places

in India—in

hopes

that still more

accurate

accounts

if possible

may

be

obtained... . How little do we know of the magnificent pagoda of Chillembrum [Chidambaram]... and a good drawing of it by an officer in the East India Company's service was exhibited

in Pall Mall in 1768.

But the East India Company

do not

engrave antient monuments and the drawing was the property and work of a private gentleman.”

Richard Gough, who became President of the Society of

Antiquaries in 1771, had

seen the drawing in London at the Society of Artists’ exhibition in Spring Gardens

(adjoining Pall Mall). The “officer” and “private gentleman” was Francis Swain Ward

(1734-94), who had a dual career, both in the East India Company's Madras Army and

as a professional artist. Ward's drawing is not known but listed in the exhibition catalogue as: “A drawing from the Bramin’s bath in Chillinbrum in the East Indies”, it would have depicted part of the great temple complex at Chidambaram in South

India. This may have been the first time that a picture of an Indian monument was put on public display, and the occasion was significant enough for Gough to recall more than fifteen years later.

Ward portrayed the same subject at the Society's exhibition in 1770. This time the

medium was oil on canvas and the picture, described in the catalogue as “The

bramin’s tank (or bath) in the pagoda of Chillenbrum in the East Indies, sacred to the

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD.

32.

Gentoo bramins, who are described in their manner of washing and praying”, survives (figure 1). It is the earliest known painting by Ward and depicts the tank in which devotees perform their ablutions. The temple of Parvati is on the left beyond the

colonnade, the entrance to the hall of a thousand pillars is on the right, and one of the four gopurams (entrance towers) with adjoining walls appears in the distance. It is

one of a group of ten oil paintings in the India Office Library and Records (IOLR),

which forms the main collection of Ward's surviving work.’

All these pictures were painted in England from drawings made by Ward “on the spot” in India between about 1757 and 1764. This was even long before the arrival in India of William Hodges,

who

has always been regarded as the first professional

landscape artist in the country. This group of pictures is therefore specially important as the earliest landscape paintings by an artist who visited the actual sites. Ward's

pioneering work in this field has been largely overlooked, yet he actually painted

Indian monuments and architectural subjects in their landscape settings throughout his life. Each of the ten paintings was exhibited at one of the Society's annual exhibitions

held between 1770 and 1773. In the latter year, Ward personally presented them to

the Company's Directors at East India House, Leadenhall Street in London. Obviously

pleased with this gift of “Pictures of remarkable Buildings and Views”, the Directors immediately gave instructions for framing and hanging them “in the most convenient part of this House". They were placed in the large room of the Committee of Correspondence, and would have complemented the views of the Company's settlements by George Lambert and Samuel Scott which, as discussed in Brian Allen's article in this volume, were displayed in the Directors’ Court Room nearby. Ward's pictures

were admired by a visitor in 1803, who reported in the European Magazine that they “form a series of interesting specimens of Indian architecture, which possesses an air

of grand simplicity not unworthy of the study of some of our modem builders”.> Even today, they are in their original frames, inscribed with information supplied by Ward himself (see figure 3 on page 21). He also signed each painting, numbering them from one to ten.* However,

as Ward

himself explained towards

the end of his life,

these were only a “preface” to a considerable collection of pictures that he painted subsequently, and which he hoped would join those already at East India House. Today this great collection is missing and is known only from a list of subjects made

by him in 1790. Above all, it reveals Ward's endless fascination for Indian architecture

(see Catalogue on page 48). Francis

Swain

Ward

was

born

in

1734

and

baptized

on

February

19,

1736

at

Kingston-upon-Thames (see note 1). Although nothing is known of Ward's professional training as an artist, his subsequent cadetship would have included drawing lessons.

However, judging from his paintings, he appears to have trained in the prevailing

style of landscape art, which combined Dutch realism and topographical accuracy

with Neo-Classical elements of composition stemming from Italy. He also painted

portraits and flower-pieces. His landscape paintings display an understanding of the Picturesque movement but his balanced compositions are generally more classical Ward usually adopted a somewhat elevated view point, strong linear perspective, tonal planes, and atmospheric clarity. His delicate colours, clear blues, varied browns, greys, and ochres are sombre, with the paint thinly applied to the canvas without much

visible

brushwork.

He

thus emphasized

the overall design

and

architectural

details of the subjects while his figures — the local people usually clothed in white garments and the soldiers in red uniforms — provide a sense of scale to the monuments. Most of his pictures evoke an air of tranquillity and stress the monumental grandeur of the subjects. They are also important as early records of the buildings.

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

33

1. Tank in the Siva Temple at Chidambaram (Madras). Francis Swain Ward, circa 1769-70. Oil on canvas, 81 x 124.5 centimetres

Although landscape painting in England in the mid-eighteenth century was gaining

recognition, it was still considered inferior — in terms of prestige — to portraiture and

history painting. The field was highly competitive, and to be successful, generally required a patron. There were print shops, but no galleries as such for the sale of paintings

by contemporary

artists. In addition

the

increasingly

fashionable

“Grand

Tour” of Europe meant that collectors were acquiring pictures and sculptures from the Continent. These included what William Hogarth scathingly described as “ship-loads

of Madonnas, Holy Families, dead Christs, and other dark dismal subjects, on which the picture-jobbers scrawl the names of Italian masters”. The “Grand Tour” itself created new patterns of English taste, which influenced the development of every field of the arts.* It led to an increasing interest in travel and a curiosity in the customs, culture, art, and architecture of distant lands, while the steady flow of published literature relating to India in Europe, as noted by Gough, is a testimony of

the depth of knowledge of the “inquisitive foreigners”. FIRST VISIT TO

INDIA,

Francis Swain Ward was already twenty-two when

1757-64 he sailed as a cadet to Madras in

1757. He was to spend seven years with the Madras Infantry serving mainly in South

India. Although he may have spent time at Fort St George (Madras), he travelled widely with his regiment and would probably have taken part in the various campaigns of the Seven

Years

War.

2. Mausoleum of Sher Shah at Sasaram (Bihar). Francis Swain Ward, circa 1772-73, from a drawing made by him circa 1760, Oil on canvas, 81 x 130 centimetres. It seems

certain

that Ward

was

posted

to Bengal

and

Bihar

in 1759-60.

On.

January 23, 1759, the Court of Directors in London sent a dispatch to the President

and Council at Fort William (Calcutta), in which he is listed as one of nine cadets deputed to serve “in the Company's Forces upon the Bengal Establishment”. It further states that the cadets “who are to be preferred if they behave well... are to be

forwarded to you by the President & Council of Fort St George” on various ships.°

There is also a reference in the Company's Embarkation Lists to Francis Ward (cadet, of Kingston in Surrey, aged twenty-three), where he is noted as a passenger (with two.

of the other cadets) on the military ship Stormont, bound for Bengal. This ship had

already left Blackwall on December 30, 1758, sailed in convoy to Madras, and anchored there at the end of October 1759. A few days later, having taken on provisions, livestock, rice, and claret, Captain Henry Fletcher noted in his log-book:

“Received on Board 38 of the Honable the Company's Soldiers for Bengall.” The ship

then sailed to Bengal, anchoring off Culpee (Kulpi) some 33 miles below Calcutta in January the following year, before starting her return voyage.”

Ward may have been assigned to Major John Caillaud. In early November 1759,

at the request of Robert Clive, Caillaud (later Commander-in-Chief, Madras) had arrived in Calcutta to take command of the British force cooperating with the Nawab

of Bengal, Mir Jafar, to protect Bihar against the Shahzada (later Shah Alam II). Caillaud had sailed from Madras with a detachment of Madras Infantry and it is likely

that Ward, who was promoted Ensign on November 4, was one of the soldiers and that he followed Caillaud to Bengal on the Stormont.®

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

SHER

SHAH’S

MAUSOLEUM

AT

35

SASARAM

Only one of the ten paintings presented to the Directors, depicts a monument

in

Northern India, the “Mausoleum of Sher Shah at Sasaram” (figure 2). This is Ward’s most classical and harmonious landscape composition. It is almost symmetrical with

the domed

offset

only

mausoleum set dramatically on a by

the

elaborate

peacock

barge.

terrace in the centre of the tank and Moreover,

it is the only

picture

of

Northern India known to relate to a drawing ‘made during Ward’s first visit to the country. Since Sasaram was situated on the old military route (later the Grand Trunk

Road), it is likely that the army halted there, giving him the opportunity to draw this

architectural masterpiece.’ For how long Ward served in the region is unclear, but he probably soon returned to the Madras Establishment. His promotion to lieutenant on

January 1, 1763 was subsequently recorded in the “List of Military Officers in the Honble United East India Company's Service on the Coast of Coromandel”.

Although references to Ward at the IOLR are scanty, it is possible to trace much

of his career from the records. In addition, a prospectus in the Calcutta Gazette on March 4, 1784, provides further information about his paintings at East India House.

On that day, Ward announced his “intention of publishing by subscription, twelve

views of curious buildings, &c. all taken on the spot by himself.” He also stated that

the paintings to be engraved were already in England. In fact, eight out of the twelve

views listed in the Calcutta Gazette, were at East India House. For some reason, Ward did not include either “Sher Shah's Mausoleum at Sasaram” or the “Rock and Temple

of Virra Malli [Viralimalai, near Trichinopoly]” (figure 7). Instead, he selected four

other pictures which must then have been in private collections in England.'° MADURA

Besides Chidambaram, Ward went to a number of other places in South India. During postings, on various marches, or perhaps on private excursions, he also saw Vellore, Trichinopoly, and the nearby island of Srirangam, besides Madura and the local site of Teppykulam." Despite his army life, apart from including a few soldiers in some paintings, only one of them has any military connotation (figure 3). The title to his

“View of the City of Madura”, as listed in the Society’s exhibition catalogue of 1772,

also states that it was “taken during the siege”. This siege took place in 1763-64 and

Ward, therefore, must have participated. It was against Muhammad Yusuf Khan, who had been a distinguished officer of the Company in charge of a force of sepoys. After switching his allegiance, he collected his own troops at Madura and although he was besieged by the British in September

1763, he held on until his final defeat towards

the end of the following year. The British encampment lay some three miles to the south-east of the Fort of Madura around the sacred tank, Teppykulam." Ward's viewpoint was the camp's line of defence with its lookout platform on the right, from which several soldiers appear to be surveying the distant fort of Madura enclosing the palace of Tirumala Nayak and the temple with its prominent gopurams.

This

particular painting has certain characteristics of a survey study

in the graphic

rendering of the plain in the middle distance, in relation to the buildings and hills on the horizon.

Ward would probably have made the original drawing for his oil painting, “Teppy Colum Tank or Bath near Madura” during this posting (figure 4). Although

similar in its basic composition to figure 1, it is more sophisticated. His colours have

greater subtlety, while the people collecting water from the tank and the soldiers

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

36

apparently admiring the scene are more realistic. This evocative landscape with its

delicate temple and comer pavilions also includes a distant view of Madura and surrounding hills. While

stationed

at Madura,

Ward

had

his first known

disagreement

with

the

authorities. It happened after a number of non-commissioned officers and men of the King’s troops serving in Madras joined the Company's service instead of sailing home

to England as planned. When those officers who had succeeded in inducing fifty men to join them were given the rank of captain as a reward, news of the promotions reached the Company's troops at Madura, thus spreading discontent. As a result in April

1764

five

lieutenants,

including

Ward,

resigned

in protest.

He

returned

to

England with his collection of drawings determined instead to make a career as a professional painter. The Directors were furious with the lieutenants’ behaviour and wrote to the Governor and Council at Fort William: “We have determined not to

permit them ever to serve the Company again, or to be allowed to reside in, or return to India.”

LONDON,

1764-73

After returning home, Ward took lodgings in London “at Mr. Perry’s in High Holbom”,

from where in 1765 he sent his first exhibit—a flower-piece —to the Society of

Artists’ exhibition. By the time he exhibited again in 1768 he had moved to a more permanent London address in Broad Street, Carnaby Market. This two-year gap at the Society's exhibitions indicates that Ward may have been travelling, as one account of

his artistic activities states, “in England and Wales making drawings of castles and ruins in landscape settings”. If so, he still preferred to paint and exhibit Indian

subjects.

Fourteen

out of the total of twenty-one

exhibits related to India.

Besides

his early drawing of Chidambaram he exhibited a small full-length portrait of the Nawab of Arcot, Indian monuments.

Muhammad

Ali

Khan,

in

1769."°

All

the

others

depicted

Of the remaining non-Indian subjects, four were portraits of unknown sitters,

while two depicted English views: Nettley Abbey in Hampshire and a mill in Surrey.

The Society's annual exhibitions were held in “the Great Room” in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, apparently for one month starting in either April or May.

In 1771, Ward

was elected a Fellow of the Society and he was also appointed its Secretary, a position which he held for about two years. By this time the Society had already purchased a plot of land for a new academy and exhibition room in the Strand, and their exhibition of 1772 was held in the new

premises.

Although Ward was probably making a modest living from his paintings, he

could hardly have expected much demand for his Indian views. Yet, he continued to

exhibit an increasing number of Indian scenes. His view of the Rock of Trichinopoly,

for example, would have appealed to the general public, since it was already celebrated as a military stronghold (see figure 3 on page 21). The picture, with its unusually rich shades of red and ochre, is a vivid portrayal of the Rock Fort as seen from the south,

crowned with a group of temples. It also displays Ward’s interest in local customs. In the foreground, a procession of Brahmins led by musicians is performing the daily ritual of carrying water from the nearby tank to their god in the temple on the rock.

Many years later, during these temples and more Richard Gough also House and he especially

a subsequent posting, Ward painted the interior of one of views of the fort from different angles. saw Ward's paintings in the Committee Room at remembered one of “Chiringham” [the island of

3. Distant View of Madura (Madras), Francis Swain Ward, circa 1772-73, from a drawing made by him circa 1763-64. Oil on canvas, 79 x 127 centimetres. 4. Teppakulam, a Sacred Tank near Madura (Madras). Francis Swain Ward, circa 1772-73, from a drawing made by him circa 1763-64, il on canvas, 81 x 130 centimetres

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

38

5. South Entrance to the Temple of Vishnu at Srirangam near Trichinopoly (Madras). Francis Swain Ward, circa 1770-71 Oil on canvas, 81 x 130 centimetres.

However, it may probably never be known to which of Ward's two paintings of this temple Gough was referring, either the “South Entrance to the Pagoda at Seringham” or “A Choultry at Seringham where the Brahmins on their feasts perform Mystick Rites”

(figures 5 and 6). Yet, with its richly carved columns of rearing horses adorning the

north facade of the Sesha Rayar mandapam (pillared hall), one might speculate that it

was the latter. The sculptural features of the mandapam contrast with the decorative carvings on the surface of the unfinished gopuram. Otherwise these pictures are

similar in composition, with the buildings placed at a slightly oblique angle to stress

their three-dimensional quality.

Ward’s interest in the rock formations of Southern India is evident in his unusual

composition of “Virra Malli”, which he described as, “a very extraordinary rock and

temple in the Tondiman woods’ (figure 7). With the series of rocks ranged precariously over the main outcrop and contrasting with the regularity of temple buildings below,

it suggests that he was

moving

away

from the classical compositions

paintings. Two paintings of travellers’ rest houses in South India

of his

earlier

complete this group

of ten paintings (figures 8 and 9). It is not possible to identify the location of the former since, as Ward himself noted, these structures were “common on all roads in the East”. The description of the latter in the Society's catalogue, however, suggests that it might be near Madura. Ward's bold use of light and shade, cast shadows,

atmospheric background, and luxurious foliage combine to create his most picturesque composition. Also infused with an atmosphere of tranquillity and nostalgia, it is reminiscent of the Neo-Classical landscapes by Richard Wilson, an eternal Arcadian

scene in which even the solitary figure has a permanent statuesque quality.

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

39

6. Choultry in the Temple of Vishnu at Srirangam near Trichinopoly (Madras), Francis Swain Ward, circa 1772-7

RETURN

TO

INDIA,

1773

From subsequent correspondence between Ward in India and Robert Orme in London,

it is obvious that they were friends. One can assume that this friendship was established

in London, although they could have met in Madras in the late 1750s, when Orme was

a Member

of Council

at Fort St George.

Orme

had

returned

to London

in 1760

and begun work on his A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in

Indostan from the year 1745 (London, 1763 and 1778), which includes engravings of

Indian

sites.

The

post

of historiographer

to the East

India

Company

was

created

specially for him and he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1770. Orme must therefore have

sharing a common

interest

known Richard Gough and they no doubt knew Ward, all in the monuments of India.'7

Exactly why Ward asked the Company to reinstate him in the army is not known, but the reasons were probably largely financial. He may have been helped by Orme and Gough, and encouraged to make another collection of drawings and paintings. In any

event,

at a meeting

of the

Court

of Directors

on

February

3,

1773,

it was

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

40

“Resolved that Mr Francis Swain Ward who was some

years since a Lieutenant at Fort

St George be restored to the Company's Military Service on that Establishment and to rank next under that Person who shall be the youngest Captain therein upon his

arrival there.” A few weeks later Ward wrote to the Directors offering his paintings “to

the Court’s Acceptance”, as a gesture of gratitude, and at their meeting on March 19, his gift was formally accepted. In addition, they agreed"“that a warrant be immediately made out to Captain Ward for two hundred Guineas and that on his arrival at Fort St.

George, he be presented with the further Sum of One thousand Pagodas as a Testimony of the Esteem the Court entertain of his valuable and very ingenious Performances”.’® Three weeks later, the Directors “Ordered that Captain Francis Swain Ward be permitted to proceed to his Station at Fort St George on board the ship Eagle and to

take his Wife and Female Servant with him the Company being at no charge thereby.” He had been appointed Captain already on September 6, 1772 and had married Elizabeth

Browne,

who

was

born

in London

in 1751.

Ward

continued

to pester the

Directors over money matters and on April 21, they asked the Committee of Shipping

“to consider of the Propriety of the Companys defraying the charge of his passage to

India”. Meanwhile the Eagle had already sailed from Deptford on March 26. Ward and his wife probably joined the ship later, since it did not actually depart from the English coast until June, and there appear to have been few alternatives for another passage.

However,

reach the Madras

they are not among

Roads

until August

the list of passengers

1774.”

and the ship did not

In India, it seems that Ward and his wife settled in Madras. Depending upon their

date of arrival, which is clearly uncertain, they probably stayed at Madras for about two years. On April 26, 1775, their daughter Elizabeth was baptized in St Mary's Church, Fort St George.” About three months later, Ward wrote to Robert Orme complaining that his accommodation was smaller than expected and that the cost of

living had increased. He was especially concerned about his rank in the army, to

which Orme replied that he had “no doubt that you will have a powerful interceder,

when General Joseph Smith comes home”.

VELLORE

By the time Ward received Orme's reply in July 1776, he had moved to Vellore, about

eighty miles inland from Madras. Contrary to being encouraged by Orme's suggestion

conceming General Smith, Ward replied, “If I was to speak of him it must be in such a stile as would surprise you and scarce gain credit. He has completed my ruin and

left me in as Great Distress as ever man was in India.” Ward then told Orme about his disagreement

with

the Commander-in-Chief,

Sir Robert

Fletcher, and

also mentioned

that, “a few days ago this Mighty man was under arrest by orders of the General and Council, he is now at liberty ...". Ward further explained dismally that all his anxiety

“has destroyed my Health and almost my Temper. My situation is without Hope condemned to Misery and Misfortune nothing can be done here but through the Favour of S R [Sir Robert Fletcher] who no distress shall force me to bring to as I

should hate myself if I accepted a favour from the wretch I dispise.” On a more cheerful note, he told Orme that, “my good woman in about two months I expect will present me with a son or daughter... my little girl [Elizabeth] grows the most Engaging

thing Imaginable and is thought very pretty but with all this and my Affection for her she adds to my Misery when

I Reflect that she is Born to Beggary...”.?

It is difficult to judge why Ward was so dejected, but he was obviously a victim

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

7. Temple and Rock at Viralimalai Francis Swain Ward, circa 1772-73, Oil on canvas, 61 x 104 centimetres,

of the prevailing political situation in the Madras Presidency. In December 1775, Lord Pigot had become Governor of Madras for the second time,

setting himself the

of

repressing certain malpractices. In April 1776, he had reinstated the Raja of Tanjore on orders from the Company. Disputes then arose between Pigot and his Council, over the Raja’s restoration and over claims on the Tanjore revenues by Paul Benfield and others. It was then that Pigot suspended two members of his Council and ordered the arrest of Sir Robert

Fletcher who,

having already displayed

a talent for intrigue,

caused a mutiny among the troops. With Fletcher's connivance, the Council immediately

retaliated and as Pigot drove one evening in August 1776 from the fort to his garden house,

he

was

seized

and

confined

at St Thomas's

Mount,

where

he

died

the

following May.** These episodes clearly affected Ward and it is obvious where hi: allegiances lay. To make

matters worse,

it was one of the rebel Council

members,

George Stratton, who succeeded Pigot as Governor of Madras. By this time, however, Ward had already settled in Vellore, where he probably remained for about a year or eighteen months.

TRICHINOPOLY

On November 4, 1777, he wrote to Robert Orme again, this time from Trichinopoly. This is the last known letter that he sent to Orme and it is perhaps the most revealing.

Unlike his earlier letters, this was carried by a “private hand”; Ward was highly suspicious that “for some time all letters were opened, at least we suspect so, and

8. A Public Choultry for the Repose of Travellers, Francis Swain Ward, circa 1770-71 Oil on canvas, 71 x 109.5 centimetres. 9. A Choultry for Worship, perhaps near Madura Francis Swain Ward, circa 17 1 Oil on canvas, 71 x 109.5 centi

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

43

Read to the Prejudice of the writer’. He continued: “I believe one I wrote to you shared the same fate. In it I gave you an Account of the Revolution at Madras, pray let me know if such a Letter ever came into your Hand.”

For the first time in the surviving correspondence with Orme, Ward mentioned

his artistic work: “I wrote to England to beg the Command of Madura, a Command 1 more wish than others more lucrative to those of my Rank in the service, but my

Motive for it is my turn for Drawing and Painting which I should Employ during my

Residence there, to make addition of Curiosities to those I have already furnished the Public with; I have not been Idle since my Arrival but have made a Collection I am

convinced would give you great Pleasure could I convey them to you . . Could I get to Madura I should esteem myself happy as that place and its Neighbourhood affords

more Beauties of Nature and Art than perhaps any other place in India.“ Whether or not Ward was granted a post at Madura is not known and he was still at Trichinopoly

the following June; he did, however, visit Madura again. Although between 1780 and 1784 he would probably have taken part in the Second Mysore War, he was generally disillusioned with army life. His ambition was to publish engravings after his paintings.

At least the next thirteen years were spent in trying to achieve this, sadly to no avail.

However, even his attempts provide more information about him, his work, and especially further clues to missing paintings. PROPOSALS

FOR

ENGRAVINGS

Ward was subsequently stationed at Vizagapatam, from where on August 17, 1783, he

wrote to the Governor and Council at Fort St George, asking them to forward a letter to the Directors in London. He was seeking approval to carry out his “proposals... [for] the work”. Although Ward’s actual letter has not come to light, one can assume

that he was writing for permission to have his pictures at East India House engraved. This was his proposal in the Calcutta Gazette, in March 1784, under the heading: “To the Lovers of Arts in India”. It further explained that “Capt.

Francis Swain Ward, of the

Madras establishment, whose paintings and drawings of Gentoo Architecture, &c. are

well known and esteemed in Europe and India, wellwishers to publish his works, ... [which] are engraved by the first masters in England. The one hundred rupees for each set. Subscriptions

having been solicited by proposed on a large scale price will be twenty-five will be received by Mr. J.

many of and will pagodas, McClary,

his be or or

at the shop of Messrs Williams & Rankin.” This set of twelve views was to be the first

of a series.* Although Ward himself soon dropped the idea of organizing this project from India, even several years later, his brother in England was discussing the possibility

Sandby.””

of engraving

these

paintings

with

the

leading

aquatint

engraver,

Paul

However, as far as the subscribers in India were concemed, Ward decided

instead to exhibit a different selection of paintings in Calcutta the following year. Another advertisement went into the Calcutta Gazette on March 3, 1785: “It being suggested to Captain Ward, that the Public would be better satisfied to have seen the work he intends for publication, than pursue that which was advertised some time

ago, and now in England, and of which those now here are a continuation, he is induced (provided

it is not objected to by the present Subscribers) to alter his Plan,

and make the following pieces the first part of his Work.” The price remained the same.

Ward put his pictures, along with many others, on display “at Mr Farington’s,

at the Old

Library”

in Calcutta.

George

Farington

(brother of the artist and diarist,

44

THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

Joseph Farington), was also a landscape artist. The new list included Madura (with an interior of the palace), Trichinopoly (including the interior of one of the rock temples), and

several

of Tanjore.

He

also

listed

“A

view

at Samochelum

[Simachalam,

near

Vizagapatam]”, noted for its temple, and “Rock and Pagoda of Virra Mally”* The

work was to be called Perspective Views of Hindoo Temples, Buildings, etc. The pictures were sent from Calcutta to England with Lord Macartney, who was to “put [them] into the hands of the first engravers.” Macartney, who had been Governor of Madras until June 1785, stopped at Calcutta for a few weeks on his

homeward journey. Although he reached London safely in early January the following

year, the fate of the pictures entrusted to him remains a mystery. Two years elapsed and Ward again announced in the Calcutta Gazette (March 2, 1787) that “although the

work has suffered great delay from unforeseen accidents, he will certainly prosecute

it, as soon as remittances can be made to England for that purpose”. He also changed

his Calcutta agent to Messrs Hamilton and Trail. PROPOSED

VIEWS OF CALCUTTA

At the same time Ward was endeavouring to have six of his paintings of Calcutta

engraved by Richard Brittridge, who ran a business in Lal Bazar engraving jewellery and printing stationery. It was probably in late 1784 or early 1785 that Ward met

Brittridge in Calcutta to discuss the project. Ward agreed to pay him for engraving the plates and to share the sale profits equally. Although Brittridge began one plate, the

project had barely progressed six months later. On September 15, 1785, two addresses

to the public appeared in the Calcutta Gazette: one was from Ward explaining that he

had been let down by Brittridge, who “for this delay, made frivolous excuses”; the

other was from Brittridge claiming in reply that, “as Capt. F. S. Ward has, with much assiduity

and

malignity,

circulated

in many

companies

a very

partial

and

unjust

account of our proceedings”, he wanted to explain what happened. Brittridge reported

that he had only agreed to try one plate since the technique was new to him, and

that, ultimately, they had been unable to agree on the financial terms.

Thus Ward was informing the public with regret that he was obliged to have his Calcutta views engraved in England. He was inviting subscriptions of four gold mohurs, “which will be received by Mr. Joseph Sandys, behind the Old Court House, where the pictures are now to be seen and by an early conveyance to be sent to

England”. Further calamities took place and finally, on February 12, 1790, Ward wrote

to the Directors telling them that his attomey, Sandys, was bankrupt twelve thousand rupees collected from subscribers was lost. Whether this the views of Calcutta alone, or for the project sent with Macartney, is can appreciate, though, that if the Calcutta pictures had been engraved

and that the sum was for unclear. One by Brittridge,

they would have predated the earliest prints to be published in the city, Thomas Daniel's. Views of Calcutta (1786-88). If the pictures sent with Macartney had been engraved, they could have coincided with the publication of William Hodges’ Select Views in India (London, 1785-88), which qualify as the earliest published views from

drawings by a professional artist in India. A

LOST

COLLECTION

already fifty-two, with retirement in sight, before he was promoted to t-Colonel on April 17, 1786. He retired the following year on a pension of

45

10. The Tomb Francis Swain Oil on canvas, By permission Collection

of Nathar Shah near Trichinopoly Ward, 1782 53 x 76.5 centimetres. of the UK. Government Art

1 , Mausoleum with Stone Elephants, Francis Swain Ward, 1788. Oil on canvas, 51 x 77 centimetres. Courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

46

seventy-six pagodas per month, which he claimed was barely sufficient to feed his wife and seven children. Despite the difficulties with the engraving projects, he

continued to draw and paint and by the time he wrote to the Directors on February

12, 1790, he had built up a collection of at least seventy-six oil paintings “of the Chief remarkable things between Cape Camarine (Comorin) and Calcutta”. He explained that it was

partly the Directors’ interest in his earlier paintings that had encouraged

him to make another “Capital Collection which with much Expence and great labour

I have accomplished. It consists Chiefly of the Beauties of Hindoo and Morishan (sic) Architecture, together with Eighteen much admired views of Calcutta and Fort St

George... . I have in making my Collection followed Nature in every Particular and aimed

at only

a faithful

representation.

In

each

picture

are

figures

and

things

Characteristic of the Manners, Customs, Religious Ceremonys and Sports of ye Country.”

He had also prepared “a kind of history of the Representation . . but through the immense

Labirinth of Tradition and Fable I find it impossible to arrive at that Precision

I could wish to attain.”

Ward was offering to send the collection to England “by the first ship and if

possible accompany them myself as by Act of Parliament the Artist is to bring his

Work Duty free”. There can be no doubt that these pictures were oil paintings, and in fact most of them were too large to have been otherwise. Above all, he wanted the

Company to acquire the collection as a whole for “to divide it would destroy its consequences and bea real loss to Europe and I hereby imagine to the Honble East India Company as it contains more real information respecting India than anything

which has hitherto appeared and it is my sincere wish and Ambition that they were

the ornaments of the India House, as those now there are but a Preface to the Great

Body of my works.” With

this letter, Ward

also sent “A Catalogue

of the Work”,

comprising

a list of

his seventy-six paintings (see Catalogue on page 48). Their subjects were meticulously

described along with the measurements, and it is a remarkable documentation of fascinating subjects. The size of the collection indicates that he painted consistently

over many years and that he sold few, if any, of his works. Judging from the range of places, he obviously took the opportunity to record monuments and buildings, clearly his favourite subjects, wherever he went. In addition to the paintings of Calcutta and Fort St George, there are views in and

around Tanjore, Vizagapatam, Vellore, Trichinopoly, and Madura besides places in

Cuttack, the Chilka Lake, Pulicat, Bimlipatam, Kumbakonam, and elsewhere. While offering them to the Directors, Ward proposed that “the whole or such Parts as may be thought proper for engravings may be executed at the Honble Company’s expense

and in return that they indulge me with the Plates”. He also asked for his three youngest sons, Francis, Robert, and Benjamin,

to be appointed minor cadets in the

Company’s service. However, as Gough had already pointed out in 1785, “the East India do not engrave antient monuments” and finally on August 11, 1790, the Court of

Directors met and resolved that Ward's requests “be not complied with”.*' Four more oil paintings, certainly by Ward, probably all dating from the 1780s,

are known. Some thirty years ago, when they were restored together, their subject identifications were switched. It now seems clear that “Rock and Tank, Trichinopoly”

and “Mausoleum of Nathar Shah near Trichinopoly” (figure 10; signed and dated 1782 on back of canvas before relining), are those subsequently acquired by the U.K. Government Art Collection.

The other two, “Mausoleum at Outatori” and “Mausoleum

with Stone Elephants” (figure 11; signed and dated 1788 on front), are those later acquired by the Yale Center for British Art. Both views at Trichinopoly relate to subjects listed in Ward's

“Catalogue”

but their sizes are different? The tomb of the

47

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

12. St Thomé Street, Fort St George, Madras, Aquatint engraving by H. Merke after the watercolour by William Orme, from a painting by Francis Swain Ward. 30.5 x 42.5 centimetres. The original painting by Ward was probably made between 1786-90. Collection of Roy and Pauline Rohatgi

saint, Sultan Saiyad Babayga Nathar Shah, to the west of Trichinopoly, lies within the mosque named after him. Here Ward's colour scheme is brighter than previously and the subjects are bathed in sunshine. There is also a real sense of atmosphere conveyed

by the storm clouds in figure 11, which is further heightened by Ward's greater

freedom of brushwork. In essence, however, it is still the overall design and decorative elements of these small, elegant buildings that dominate the scene.

There are clearly many unanswered questions concerning Ward and his pictures.

Above all, the present locations of all seventy-six paintings, if indeed they have survived, are unknown.

By the time of his death at the age of sixty on March 9, 1794,

Ward and his family had moved to the former Dutch port of Negapatam. His wife Elizabeth remained there with her children until her death on May 15, 1806 at the age

of fifty-five. Both were buried in the Karicop cemetery at Negapatam.” The careers

of the children are known their father's paintings.

to some extent, but so far provide

no information about

One further tangible clue to the fate of Ward's collection remains. It was probably after Ward's death that some paintings were acquired by Richard Chase. He was a free merchant

and a leading citizen of Madras,

where

he was

a partner with his brother

Thomas in the firm of Chase, Sewell & Chase in the 1790s. On January 1, 1800, he was

elected Mayor of Madras, retaining this position only until March when he seems to have retumed to England." His picture collection also included paintings by Thomas Daniell, which he acquired at the Daniells’ Lottery in Madras in February 1793.”

4s

LOST PAINTINGS

“A CATALOGUE

BY WARD

OF THE

WORK.”

1. “The inside of the Curious Pagoda on the Rock in Trichinopoly” GQ ft 4 ins x 3M.

2. “The inside of a Beautiful Apartment in the Palace of Madura” G ft 4 ins x 3 ft).

3. “The Nabob’s Mosque in Trichinopoly”

fe 6 ins x 3 0.

4. “The Tomb

near

(4 ft 6

of Nuttersaib [Nathar Shah]

Trichinopoly” ins x 3 ft).

5. “The Rock, Tank and Pagoda & &c in

Trichinopoly” (4 ft 6

ins x 3 fh).

6. “A General View of Trichinopoly from

the Plain” G4 ft 6

ins x 3 fi).

7. ANth. Wt, View of the Rock in Trichinopoly”

(2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 8. “Sth. Et. View of the same &c in Do”

2£6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins).

9. “The Great Maharatta Pagoda &c in Tanjore”

G ft 6 ins x 3 0.

10. “A View of Various Buildings belonging to ye same Pagoda” G ft 6

ins x 3 ft).

G ft 6

ins x 3 fi).

11. "The Elegant Bramins Village of Treveare 10 miles from Tanjore”

12. “The noble Choultrey or Caravansera at

Myaveram [Mayavaram, Tanjore District!”

G ft 6

13.

ins x 3 fi).

“Jaganaut Pagoda Jagannath Temple

Puri) in the Kingdom of Cuttack”

(4 ft 6 ins x 3 f0. 14. “The Ruins of the Palace at Madura”

G fr 6 ins x 3 f0.

15. “A General View of Fort St George

from the Sea”

G4 ft 6 ins x 3 f0. 16, "Do from the North’ G4 ft 6 ins x 3 ft). 17. “Do from the West" G ft 6 ins x 3 fo), 18. “Do from the South” (4 ft 6 ins x 3 fh).

19. “North Gate Street in Fort St George’

G4 ft 6 ins x 3 ft). 20. “St Thoma Street in Do” (4 ft 6 ins x 3 fh). 21. “An Extensive View from the

Works in Fort St George’

4 f06 ins x 3 f aken ni the Sea Gate in Fort St George” G f6 ins x 3 10. 23. “The Parade in Do” Gf 6 ins x 3 f. 24. “Charles Street in Do” G4 f6 ins x 310

25. “Court House Street in Do 50. “Tyagar [Thiaghur, South Arcot District) G ft 6 ins x 3 fo. from the West” 26. “The Black Town from Hog Hill” (2 ft6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins), G ft 6 ins x 3 fo. 51. “Canambady Peak, Dobey Ghur and 27. “Fort William in Bengal from the Chuckler Gurr [possibly Chuckleghery] Forts new Court House” from the South” G ft x 2 f8 ins). (2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins), 28. “The Old Court House &c &c in 52. “Lord Pigots Pagoda in the Black town Calcutta” of Madras” G ft x 2 f8 ins). (2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 29. “The Old Fort &¢ & in Calcutta” 53. “The Chilca Lake (Chilka Lake near 4 fe x 2 8 ins). Puri] with Rumbo (Rambha] House 9 miles 30. “The Esplanade Row from near the N of Gungam [Ganjam)" Rusapugla road [Calcutta] (2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 4 fx 2 £8 ins). 54. “Pan of Bimlipatam [near Vizagapatam!" 31. “Do from the River side” @ ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). G ft x 2 f8 ins). 55. “A Curious Hindoo Bridge called 32. “Chitpoor Pagoda & in Calcut ? Sineapul in the Cattack (Cuttack) G fx 2 £8 ins). Kingdom” 33. “Snow Pettah near (2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). Bimlipatam [Vizagapatam District!” 56 to 58, “Parts of Vellure — these Pictures G ft6 ins x 2 ft 6 ins), were Painted with Design to show the 34, “Vizagapatam from the Sea” manner of Fortification in the East Indi G ft 3 ins x 2 ft 3 ins), ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 35. “Do from the Bleaching ground” 59. “The Temple of Maddee Boney G fe 3 ins x 2 ft 3 ins), [Madhubani) or Patana Durgham” 36. “Do from the Black Rock” G ft 4 ins x 2 ft 6 ins). G fe3 ins x 2 ft 3 ins). 60, “St Thomas Mount (Madras]” 37. “Do from a Bastion to the North” (2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). G ft 3 ins x 2 ft 3 ins). 61. “Bylisheram Coil in the Kingdom of 38. “The Factory House & &c in Tanjore” Vizagapatam” 2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). G ft 3 ins x 2 ft 3 ins), 62. “Combeconam {Kumbakonam, Tanjore 39. “Beach Street in Do” District] in Do Do” G fe 3 ins x 2 ft 3 ins), f6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 2 40. “A View in the Front of the Raja's 63. “Swamey Bull in his Choultrey in House at Samochelum (Simhachalam, near Tanjore [Great temple at Tanjorel” Vizagapatam\" (2 ft6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). G3 ft 3 ins x 2 ft 3 ins). 41. “The Curious road in the Rock leading 64, “The City of Madura from the N. Et.” 2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). to the Temple of Samochelum (Simhachalam near Vizagapatam] this View 65. “Pulliacat [Pulicat, Madras District)” 2 fe 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). is taken when at the height of 500 feet 66. “Sandole Pagoda 20 miles South of above the Level of the Plain” Mausulipatam”™ (2 ft 6 ins x 2 ft 6 ins). (2 ft 6 ins x 1 fe 8 ins). 42. “The Painted Choultrey near Tanjore” (2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins) 43. “The East face of Tanjore” THE FOLLOWING ARE OF VARIOUS AND 2 ft6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins), SMALLER SIZES 44, “The South Do Do" Q ft6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 67. “A View up the Valley of Vizagapatam 45. *Virra Maly (Viralim: ail Rock and 68. “Trichinopoly from the ?Annient Pagoda” 69. “A House in Tanjore” (2 ft 6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 70. “The Admirals House at St Thoma 46. “A small but beautitul Tomb at [near Madras)” Antaloor @ Outaton” 71. “The Fort and Palace of Chandagr Q ft6 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 72. “The Forts of Amboor [Ambur, North 47. “The Ruined Pagoda of Do” Arcot District 2 £6 ins x 1 ft 8 i 73. “Doby Ghur" 48. “Marmalong Bridge and St Thomas 74, “A Scene in the Nattam Woods Mount & Xe from ye East (Madras) [Madura District £16 ins x 1 ft 8 ins). 75. “An East View of Rock in 49. “Do Do Sc Se from the West Trichinopoly Q fi 6 ins x 1.8 ins. 76. °A View from the Parade in Vellure”

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

49

On returning to England, Richard Chase met William and Edward Orme, leading

engravers and publishers of fine colour plate books in London. Between January 1801

and January 1805, they published a series of coloured aquatints titled, Twenty-four

Views in Hindostan, Drawn by William Orme From the Original Pictures Painted by

Mr. Daniell & Colonel Ward: now in the Possession of Richard Chase Esqr. (late Mayor of Madras). The watercolour drawings by William Orme made from the original

pictures specially for the engravers are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum,

London, but the fate of Richard Chase’s pictures is unknown. The engraved views after Ward (probably numbering thirteen, while the remaining eleven are after Thomas Daniell),

(figure

include one of the Old Court House,

12). Since

these are all listed in Ward's

Calcutta and five of Fort St George

“Catalogue”

of 1790, one

can assume

that the original paintings were in the Chase Collection. They also provide examples of his interest in European

architecture. The south view of St Thomé

Street includes a

glimpse of the east end of St Mary's Church on the right and the elegant Georgianstyle houses within Fort St George. The work is strictly topographical, giving a clear

visual impression of the appearance of the fort in the 1780s.

Four engravings, almost certainly after originals by Ward, depict views of North

India: the forts of Gwalior and Mathura, a scene at Anupshahr (Agra district) and “Anchshur in the Territory of Bengal’.

Since there is not a single view of North India

included in the “Catalogue”, Ward probably journeyed north again towards the end of his life. One can only speculate that having amassed a collection of South Indian subjects, he decided to build up a collection of Northern views, and may well have been working on this when

he died.

with

and

The significance of this lost collection is not hard to appreciate when compared the works

of Hodges

the

Daniells.

At the time

in

1790

that Ward

was

offering it to the Directors, Hodges was in London painting views of North India, having been unable to travel further than Madras

itself in 1780. The Daniells were still

travelling in Northern India and were actually visiting Sasaram in January 1790. They

then stayed at Bhagalpur for more than a year, partly preparing oil paintings for the lotteries in Calcutta and Madras. Their visit to South India took place only in 1792-93.

Ward's South Indian collection, therefore, represents the earliest and most comprehensive

collection of the region. One can only hope that it might now be possible to locate and identify some of the missing paintings.

NOTES Unless stated otherwise all references to records, collections are to those in the India Office Records in London 1. The primary published sources on Francis Swain Ward and his paintings in the India Office Library are W. Foster, 4 Descriptive Catalogue of the Paintings, Statues, Ec. in the India Office (London, 1924) H. D. Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 4 vols. (London, 1913), and M. Archer, The India Office Collection of Paintings and Sculpture (London, 1986); Dodwell and Miles, Officers of the Indian Army, 1760-1837 (London, 1838), R. H. Phillimore, Histoncal Records of the Sunvey of India, 5 vols. (Debra Dun, 1945-68), vol. 2, pp. 448-49. The recent discovery of Ward's baptism certificate (Suey Record Office) confirms his baptism on February 19, 1736 at All Saints Church, Kingston-upon-Thames (son of Ann and Thomas Ward). 2. A. Graves, Society of Artists of Great Briain 1760-91... (London, 1907), pp. 271-72. Original catalogues of the Society's exhibitions are in the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The titles of Ward's Indian subjects and year of exhibition at the Society of Antists were as follows (corresponding reference number of the India Office Library and Records in brackets) 2) 1768, “A drawing from the Bramin's bath in Chillinbrum in the East Indies. (2) 1769, “A small whole length of Mahomed Alli Cawn.” (3) 1770. “The Bramin’s tank (or ba ¢ pagoda of Chillenbrum in the East Indies, sacred to the Gentoo bramins, who are described in their manner of washing and praying.” GOLR: F.21) (4) 1770, “Teppy colum tank (or great bath near Madura in the East Indies), describing the natives, and the manner of travelling, (5) 1771. “The grand entrance to the Pagoda of Seringham, in the East Indies.” (OLR: F.27) (6) 171, “A choultry, built for the reception of travellers, common on all the roads in the Fast." (OLR: E14)

50

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD.

(7) 1771. “A View in passing the mountains near Velure, in the East Indies.” (8) 1772. “A View of the city of Madura, in the East Indies, taken during the sieg.” (OLR: F.31) (9) 1772. “A choultry for worship, ditto" lie perhaps meaning “taken during the siege” and therefore at Madural OLR: F.22) (10) 1773. “The mausoleum of Seer Shaw, at Sassaram in the Kingdom of Bengal.” (OLR: F.25) (11) 1773. “The grand festival Choultry, in Syringham.” (IOLR: F.30) (42) 1773. “The great Tank or bath of Teppycolumn.” (IOLR: F.34) (13) 1773. *Virra Malli, a very extraordinary rock and temple, in the Tondiman woods.” (OLR: F.10) (14) 1773. “The back of Tritipinopoly; the procession in the foreground shews the daily custom of carrying water to their god, in the temple on the rock.” (IOLR: F.24) 3. India Office Records: Court Minutes dated March 19, 1773 (B/88 p. 544), For the description of East India House and its most important rooms see the European Magazine (March 1803), pp. 167-68, 4, Below are the inscriptions from the frames of Ward's paintings which he presented to East India House in 1773. They differ slightly from the titles in the Society of Artists’ exhibition catalogues (see note 2); the date in brackets denotes the year of exhibition and therefore indicates the date of the painting: (1) F.21. “The Bramins’ Bath in Chillimbrum between the walls of the Pagoda.” (1770). Signed: No. 7 F $ Ward Pinscit. (2) F.27. “The South Entrance to the Pagoda at Seringham.” (1771). Signed: F § WARD Pinxt No. 4 GB) F.14. “A Public Choultry for the Repose of Travellers.” (1771). Signed: F $ WARD Pinxt No... Gnvisible) (4) F31. “A view of the East Face of Madura with the Line of Woods on that side of the Fort.” (1772). No signature visible but foreground overpainted (S) F.22. “A Chouliry where travelling Gentoos worship.” (1772). Signed: F § WARD Pinxt No. 5. (6) F.25. “Mausoleum of the Emperor Shit Shah in a large Tank near Sasaram in Behar.” (1773). Signed: FS WARD No. X. (7) E30. “A Choultry at Seringham where in the Brahmins on their feasts perform Mystick Rites.” (1773). Signed: ‘No 3 FS WARD Pinxit. (8) F.34. “Teppy Colum Tank or Bath near Madura, 1,000 feet square, with twelve grand flights of stairs. (1773). Signed: FS WARD No. 6 (very faint). (9) F.10, *Verra Malli, a Romantick Rock in Tondiman's Woods, 40 miles south of Trichinopoly.” (1773). Signed: FS WARD Pinxt No. 9. (10) F.24. “The Rock of Trichinopoly, 330 feet high, the bramins carrying water to the Temple, and a view of the Barracks.” (1773). Signed: F § WARD PINXT No. VIll Although not all the signatures are visible today, there is enough evidence to suggest that Ward originally signed and numbered them all 5. See B. Denvir, The Eighteenth Century Art, Design and Society 1689-1789, London and New York, 1983. 6 See Madras Army List, 1760 (L/Mil/11/1, ff.4, 10v, 177v); Dispatches to Bengal (E/4/616 £827). 7. See Embarkation Lists, vol. 1, 1740-63 (L/Mi1/9/85) and the Log of the Stormont (December 30, 1758 to July 8, 1761), Captain Henry Fletcher (L/Mar/B/458B). His companion cadets as listed in the Embarkation List were George Scott and Thomas McMahamn. 8. See W. J. Wilson, History of the Madras Army from 1746-1826, 5 vols., Madras, 1886. 9, See G. H. R. Tillotson, “The Paths of Glory: Representations of Sher Shah's Tomb”. Oriental ant, vol. XXXVI, no. 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 4-16, for a discussion on the various views of the tomb by several different artists including Ward, Hodges, and the Daniells. 10. The list of twelve views given in Ward's advertisement in the Calcutta Gazette, first on March 4, 1784, is as follows — the corresponding Foster numbers (F.) refer to the paintings in the India Office Library and hence those presented to East India House: (1) “The grand entrance to the pagoda of Seringham.” (F.27) (2) “A very rich Choultry in Seringham.” (F. 30) (3) “A view of the East face of the city of Madura.” (F.31) (4) “A view of the South face of Trichinopoly.” (F.24) (5) “A view of Teppy, Colum Tank, near Madura.” (F.34) (6) “A view of the Bramin’s Tank in Chillenbrum.” (F.21) (7) “A view of the Rock and Pagoda in Trichinopoly.” (missing painting) (8) “A view of the Rock and Pagoda of Puginary Coil [perhaps Permacoil. near Gingeel, in the kingdom of ‘Tondyman.” (missing painting) (9) “A view of the Hills & Fort of Vellore, taken from the Parade in the Lower Fort.” (missing painting) (10) “A view of the forts of Doby Ghur, Chuchler Ghur [possibly Chucklegheryl, Canambady Peak and the adjacent country taken from the South.” (missing painting) (1D “A view of an open Choultry for worship.” (F.22) (12) “A view ofa Choultry for the accommodation of travellers.” (F.14) 11. See Note 10 (8) and (10) above for other places that Ward visited. 12, See W. Francis, Madura District Gazetteer, vol. 1, pp. 67, 257, Madras, 1914, It is interesting to note that W. Francis had seen “A picture in the possession of Mr Robert Fischer of Madura — copied from one in the India Office and representing the town of Madura from the south-east at the time of a siege by some British force — gives some idea of the appearance of the walls.” This clearly relates to another painting by Ward of Madura. See also the manuscript collection of Robert Orme in the India Office Records: Orme Ms. O.V. 332. No.24, which

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

includes a French plan of Madura (engraved by Croisey) showing the British camp situated to the east of the fort during the first siege in 1763. The tank, Teppykulam, is clearly marked within the boundaries of the camp. 13. Two versions of Ward's painting of Teppykulam are known from the Society of Artists’ exhibitions: “Teppy colum tank (or great bath near Madura in the East Indies), describing the natives in the manner of travelling” was displayed in 1770, and “The great Tank or bath of Teppycolum” was exhibited in 1773. Since Ward's painting in the IOL does not include local modes of travelling (unless he was referring to the runner on the right of his picture), this was probably the work exhibited in 1773. 14. Dispatches from the Court of Directors to Bengal, February 15, 1765 and February 19, 1766. 15. See G. K. Nagler, Kunstler Lexicon, Munich, 1836; S, Redgrave, Dictionary of Artists of the Englisb School, London, 1878, also states that Ward made “sketches and drawings of ancient castles and mansions and from which he painted both in oils and watercolours... there are numerous drawings by him of the Indian pagodas, tombs and ruins” 16. A portrait of Muhammad Ali Khan, Nawab of Arcot (1749-95), is in the collection of the Duke of Wellington at Stratfield Saye, Hampshire (no. 108). It seems that it was painted sometime between 1760 and 1763, probably for Lord Pigot, Governor of Madras, 1755-63. See M. Archer, India and British Portraiture 1770-1825, London, 1979, p. 70. Another version of the picture, in which the Nawab has the same pose and costume but with a different background, was engraved in mezzotint by Dixon and a reproduction of this forms the frontispiece to vol. 3 of Love. op. cit. It is not known which version was exhibited at the Society's exhibition. Ward also painted the Nawab’s Palace in Madras. 17. Orme’s book includes accounts and engraved illustrations of places made famous by the military campaigns, several of which are from drawings by John Call; he was Chief Engineer of Madras in 1758 and was also commanding at Madura in 1763. Ward also painted a portrait of Call with a view of St Thomas's Mount near Madras; I am most grateful to Charles Greig for telling me about the existence of this portrait 18. See Court Minutes February 3, 1773 (B/88 f. 433): March 19, 1773 (B/B8 f. 544), April 6, 1773 (B/88 f . 57475); Company to Fort St George, April7, 173 (Love, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 277). 19. See Court Minutes April 21, 1773 (B/89 f. 22); Log and receipt books of the Eagle (L/Mar/B/537 A & E). There is a discrepancy in the published references to Ward which note that he was appointed Captain on September 6, 1773, whereas the record in L/Mil/11/1 indicates the same date in 1772 which seems more likely, but even this is somewhat unclear. It should also be noted that Ward exhibited five paintings at the Society of Antsts’ exhibition in 1773, which opened only on April 29 and probably continued for a month. This further suggests that Ward and his wife joined the Eagle later. 20. See Ecclesiastical Returns Madras, 1698-1784, Part 4 (N/2/1/364v and p. 741), Ward had at least seven children and although details about them are known. it is not possible to include them here. 21. The existence of Ward's letter dated Fort St George July 14, 1775 is known only from Orme's reply dated December 21, 1775 (MSS Eur O.V, 202, pp.110-1D). 22. See MSS Eur O.V. 83, pp. 11-14 23. See Love, op. cit. for details of Pigot’s career. 24, See MSS Eur O.V. 83, pp. 36-39. Mr Stanhope who carried Ward's letter to Orme was Philip Dormer Stanhope (Asiaticus’). 25. See Public Consultations at Fort St George, vol. 131, folio dated September 3, 1783; and Public Dispatches to England from Fort St George, vol. 30, p. 123. folio dated September 6, 1783. Both are in the State Archives of Tamil Nadu, Madras. 26, See Note 10. 27, See Miscellaneous Letters Received (E/1/84/part 1, f. 102). 28, Below are the titles of the views as given in Ward's advertisement in the Calcutta Gazette on March 3, 1785: () “The Palace of Madura.” (missing painting) cf. 14 in Catalogue on page 48. (2) “The Tank and Rock in Trichinopoly.” (missing painting) cf. 5 in Catalogue. (3) “The inside of the Pagoda on the Rock in Trichinopoly.” See 1 in Catalogue and Note 36 (2), (@) “The inside of the Hall in the Palace of Madura.” (missing painting) cf. 2 in Catalogue. (5) “The Mahratta Pagoda in Tanjore.” (missing painting) See 9 in Catalogue (6) “A View in the Pagoda Court in Tanjore.” (missing painting) cf, 10 in Catalogue (7) “Trichinopoly Rock from the south.” cf. F. 24 (8) “A View at Samochelum [Simhachalam, near Vizagapatam).” (missing painting) cf. 40 and 41 in Catalogue. (9) “The painted Choultry near Tanjore.” (missing painting) See 42 in Catalogue. (10) “The Rock and Pagoda of Virra Mally [Viralimalail.” cf. F. 10 and 45 in Catalogue. (1D) “The East View of Tanjore.” (missing painting) See 43 in Catalogue. (12) “The South View of Tanjore.” (missing painting) See 44 in Catalogue, 29. See Calcutta Gazette, September 15, 1785, 30. It is interesting to note that a receipt dated April 24, 1785 for a hundred rupees “as a subscription for one set Of Perspective Views of Hindoo Temples, Buildings, etc. to be published and delivered within eighteen months in England and two years in India, made out to Captain (Sir) John Kennaway and signed by Ward is in the Robert Palk Collection. See Historical Manuscripts Commission Report on the Palk Manuscripts (London, 1922), no. 396. Sir Robert Palk had succeeded Pigot as Governor of Madras in 1763, It seems that Kennaway, who served under Eyre Coote in the Camatic, was ordering the set of prints as a gift to be delivered to Sir Robert Palk in London, 31, See Public Consultations at Fort St George, vol. 161, folio dated February 12, 1790 in the State Archives of Tamil Nadu, Madras, in which Ward's letter and “Memorial Accompanying” is noted as “Ordered to be forwarded

51

52

‘THE PIONEERING ART OF FRANCIS SWAIN WARD

to England”. See also Court Minutes, July 2 and August 11, 1790 (B/111, pp. 276 and 402); Committee of Correspondence References and Minutes, July 2 and August 11, 1790 (Z/D/4 and D/2); Miscellaneous Letters Received (IOR: E/1/84, part 1, ff.102-06v). The last named item is the reference to Ward's letter and list of paintings, dated February 12, 1790. This was se n around the turn of this century by William Foster, who briefly noted its contents but without giving any source. See Catalogue on page 48. 32, See 4 and 5 in Catalogue on page 48. 33. See Madras Retums N/2/11/827 and J. J. Cotton, List of Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Madras, Madras, 1946, vol. 2, p. 235, which notes that Francis Swain Ward died on March 9, 1794 aged 60 years. His death was also announced in the Madras Courier on March 21, 1794: “At Negapatam the 9th Instant Lieut. Colonel Francis Swain Ward — A Affectionate Wife and a numerous and unprovided family several of whom are in the helpless state of Infancy, have to lament the irreparable loss.” The List of Tombs in the Tanjore District, Madras, 1914, on p. 9 records the inscription on the tomb of “Mrs E. Ward, relict of Lieutenant Colonel Ward, formerly of this estate, who departed this life 15 May 1806, aged 55 years.” 34. Lam very grateful to S, Muthiah, who kindly gave me further information about Richard Chase that has helped to clarify the production of the engravings after Ward. 35. See M. Shellim, india and the Daniells, London, 1979. p. 123, 36. Orme's Twenty-four Views in Hindostan was included in F.W. Blagdon, A Brief History of india Ancient and ‘Modern, London, 1802-05. The subjects of the engravings, which were almost certainly after paintings by Ward, are as follows (date of publication in brackets): (2) “Anchshur, a Vakeels Castle, in the Territory of Bengal.” January 1, 1802) (2) “A Choultry, or Place of Worship, carved out of the top of the Rock of Trichinopoly, in high repute by the Malabars.” Ganuary 1, 1802). See Note 28 (3) and 1 in Catalogue. (3) "Palace of the late Nabob of Arcot, Madras.” (January 1, 1803) (@) “The Burial Place of a Peer Zada, Anopther Bengal.” (January 1, 1803) (5) “Multura Fort on the Jumna.” (January 1, 1803) (© “Fortress of Gwalior, taken by General Popham in 1779.” (une 4, 1804) (7) “A View within the Walls of a Pagoda, Madras.” (March 1, 1804) cf. 52 in Catalogue. (8) “A View of Part of St. Thomé Street, Fort St. George.” (June 4, 1804) See 20 in Catalogue. (9) “A View from the King’s Barracks, Fort St. George.” (March 1, 1804) f. 21 in Catalogue. (10) “The Old Court House, Calcutta,"Ganuary 1, 1805) See 28 in Catalogue. (A) “South East View of the Rock of Trichinopoly.” (September 1, 1804) See 8 in Catalogue. (22) “A View in the North Street of Fort St. George.” Ganuary 1, 1805) See 19 in Catalogue. (13) “Fort Square, from the South side of the parade, Fort St. George.” cf. 23 in Catalogue. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to express my most grateful thanks to a number of people without whose help I could not have written this article: Dr M. Paramasivam, Commissioner of the State Archives of Tamil Nadu in Madras, and his colleague, Ms S. Kanthamani; Charles Greig; S. Muthiah; P. C.D. Nambiar; Mrs M. E. Swarbreck; my former colleagues at the India Office Library and Records, especially J. P. Losty, P. Kattenhom, Dr R. Bingle, and T. ‘Thomas. Special thanks are due to I. A. Baxter, who found Ward's original letter and his list of seventy-six paintings offered to the East India Company in 1790, in the India Office Records. | would also like to thank the staff of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, for all their help during my visit in September 1993. FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Mlustrations 1-9 courtesy the India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

A FAIR PICTURE HODGES

AND

THE

DANIELLS

AT

RAJMAHAL

G. H. R. TILLOTSON

Everything has a particular character, and certainly it is the

finding out the real and natural character which

is required, for

should a painter be possessed of the talents ofa Raphael, and

were to represent a Chinese with the beauty ofa Grecian character and form, however excellent bis work might be, it would still have no pretensions to reputation as characteristical of that nation.

W. Hodges, Travels in India, 1793

At the eastern edge of Bihar where the Ganges, forming the border with Bengal, turns southwards to the sea, lies the small town of Rajmahal. In 1592, this strategic site

was

chosen by Akbar’s general, Man Singh of Amber, as the headquarters of his administration of the eastern part of the Mughal Empire. In the middle of the following century, that office was filled by the second son of Shah Jahan, Shah Shuja.

Under his rule especially the place flourished, until he became a casualty in the war

of succession which placed his brother Aurangzeb on the imperial throne. Rajmahal then began a steady relapse into obscurity. Not well served by modern communications, its architectural remains are little visited today. But in the British colonial period, it lay

on a standard — mostly riverine — tourist itinerary: for those travelling up the country from Calcutta, it was one of a number of interesting and convenient possible stops between Murshidabad and Bhagalpur.

Early among such visitors were the great

English landscape painters of India, William Hodges, and Thomas and William Daniell.

Their impressions of the places two hundred years ago, are recorded in both pictures and writings.

lodges called on his first tour out of Rajmahal was one of the first places whe: Calcutta in the spring of 1781. Informed about its history, he was not disappointed to

find “numberless

as elsewhere,

rui

evidence of its former

“splendour and magnificence": here,

he revealed that (characteristically self-excluding) attraction to the idea

of passing glory. He does not say how long he stayed, but it was long enough to make drawings of several of the surviving buildings.

HODGES AND THE DANIELLS AT RAJMAHAL

54

One of these was the gateway of the caravanserai (figure 1.’ Hodges was intrigued by serais, and here he was especially impressed by the gate which “possesses

military strength no less than beauty”. He explained that: “Attached to the wall round the sides are separate apartments, covered on the top, and open to the center of the area within. In these places the traveller lodges his goods, and sleeps; the area within

the square is for the beasts. Attendant on these serais are poor people, who furnish a small bedstead for the traveller to sleep on, and who are rewarded by a trifling sum, amounting to perhaps a penny English.”

This relation of particulars of terms might tempt one to guess that he made use of

it — though, when he goes on to allege that Muslim guests pay more generously than

Hindus, he does not admit how either would compare with an Englishman with a penny. west

The most impressive ruin is that of the mosque at the Hadaf, a few miles to the of the

town.

The

construction

is a

mixture

of stone

and

brick,

which

was

originally plastered; an imposing screen of seven arches faces a large courtyard. The

vast central hall is covered not by a dome but by a vaulted roof — a form which had been used earlier in the mosque at Pandua and elsewhere in Eastern India. The roof

survives (having been restored) though the towering central iwan (recessed or vaulted arch) of the screen has collapsed since Hodges’ day. Forsaking his more customary wash technique, Hodges made a

careful pencil sketch of the screen (figure 2),? which

later served as the basis for both an aquatint and an oil painting. The subject would be of peculiar interest to an English audience, since — as Hodges notes —

a British

force was garrisoned in the mosque on the night following a battle against Mir Kasim

in

1764;

and

it is possible

that

the

oil

version

is the

“Ruins

of Rajemahel”,

Hodges says he painted for Warren Hastings after his return to Calcutta.

PALACE OF SHAH

which

SHUJA

Though the mosque is grand even now, in some ways a more intriguing subject is the

Palace of Shah Shuja, on the river bank within the town. One drawing survives

(figure 3), which corroborates Hodges’ verbal description: “There yet remains a part of the palace: which was supported by vast octangular piers, raised from the edge of the river. The great hall remains, with some lesser apartments . . these are surrounded

by immense masses of ruins.”

Hodges must have made other drawings of the palace, because there survive no

fewer than four oil paintings which show the subject from different points of view.

Two

of these oils are now in the Victoria Memorial

Hall in Calcutta. In one (figure 4),*

the same ruined portion as in the drawing is seen, but now, instead of looking along the bank with the river to one's left, one has moved out and looks back at the palace,

across the water. Clustered at the far right of the picture are a seemingly modern

pavilion with a pitched roof, a hall, and the domes of a distant mosque: these form

the principal subjects of the second oil painting (figure 5). These pictures suggest a

once substantial complex in an advanced state of decay and feature prominently the octagonal piers, slipping into the river. Not much of the palace survives today beyond the narrow pavilion known as the

Sangi Dalan, identifiable as the domed and canopied hall in the centre of figure 5. In spite of the changes of the last two centuries, comparing Hodges’ views with the site, it is apparent that he took considerable liberties with his subject,

to enhance his composition.

rearranging its parts

The Akbari Masjid, for example, is in fact rather more

distant from the palace than is implied in figure 5; the angle of view is correct but the

535

1. Gate of the Caravanserai, Raimahal Drawing by William Hodges, 1781 Pencil and wash, 49.5 x 66.4 centimetres Courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mel on Collection.

2. The Mosque at the Hadaf? Rajmahal Drawing by William Hodges, 1781 Pencil, 54.2x 74.5 centimetres Courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection,

3. Remains of the Palace of Shah Shuja, Rajmahal Drawing by William Hodges, 1781 Pencil and wash, 50.5 x 66 centimetres, Courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. distance had been foreshortened, so that it (or at least two of its domes) contributes

to the composition of architectural parts. The dark curving foreground of figure 4 is also puzzling: one may try to read it as the opposite bank or as a mudbank in midstream, but the case for either interpretation is undermined by the sketch (figure

3), where the river appears as wide and deep as it is today. This curious piece of land probably does not correspond to any object which Hodges actually saw; it has been introduced as a standard device to throw the eye into the central plane of the picture.

Another change is suggested by a discrepancy between the two paintings; the gently sloping landing stage in front of the Sangi Dalan, which provides a point of rest at the

edge of figure 4, has been replaced by more rocky, uneven and the hall assumes centre stage in figure 5.

varied forms when

In his writings Hodges cautioned his fellow artists against giving their imagination too free a rein when depicting foreign topography; their audience wanted to be

reliably informed and it would not do to give them “fanciful representatives instead of

the truth, which, above all must be the object of such researches”. How then is one to

square his own evident manipulation of his subject-matter with such advice, or with his

emphatic

authentic”?

°

and

repeated

insistence

that

his

images

of India

are

“faithful

and

The answer lies in a proper understanding of the artistic practice and aesthetic

theory of the Picturesque. A conflict between the desirability of an exact image and

the belief that art can improve on nature, had of course a long history in Western art in general, but it acquired a particular focus in English landscape painting at this period, For a theorist such as William Gilpin, the wuth to be aimed at was not so much what nature had actually achieved, but what she might be supposed to have

HODGES AND THE DANIELSAT RAIMAHAL

4, Part of the Palace of Shah Shuja, Rajmahal William Hodges. cira 1781 Courtesy Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta

HODGES AND THE DANIELLS AT RAJMAHAL

5. The Stone Pavilion of Shah Shuja’s Palace, Rajmahal. William Hodges, circa 1781 Oil on canvas, 122 x 167 centimetres. Courtesy Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta

been aiming at. There are, in such a view, general principles of natural composition

which, regrettably, nature herself does not always fulfil, but which artists can discern and apply on her behalf. The truer image is thus one in which the artist does not

simply “take the lines of the country just as you find them”, but one where he

“graced them a little, where they run false”. In a passage providing explicit justification

for actions such as Hodges’, Gilpin explains how to achieve a true likeness: “I take up a tree here, and plant it there. I pa knoll, or make an addition to it. I remove a

piece of paling — a cottage — or any removable object which I dislik

For a Picturesque artist or theorist, then, truth in a picture is not a simple matter of verisimilitude, of replicating a visual experience — but neither a matter of

employing a wilful imagination. It depends on being able to perceive and reconstruct

what nature really intended. intentions,

but this objection

A modern audience might object that nature has no

is neither

believed that it did. And he owed

here

nor there:

artists such

as Hodges

firmly

it to both nature and his audience to depict Indian

scenes as they should be, according to this higher truth, not as he happened to find them on a given day. Also significant in this connection is Hodges’ comment on an Indian painting While in Rajmahal, he took the opportunity to explore a ruined zenana, noting that, when

complete

and

inhabited, such places were normally

inaccessible to him.

He had

59

6. A View of the Inside of a Zananah, Engraving by Skelton after an Indian miniature painting, 128 x 19.5 centimetres, Plate from Hodges’ Travels im India (London, 1793). 7. A Ruined Tomb by the near Rajmahal Drawing by William Hi

60

HODGES AND THE DANIELLS AT RAIMAHAL

8. Tomb and Distant View of the Raimahal Hils William Hodges. circa 1781

HODGES AND THE DANIELLS AT RAJMAHAL

in

his

possession

an

Indian

picture

of a zenana

which,

61

on

the

strength

of his

examination of the ruins, he commended for its “perfect accuracy” (figure 6).* This is

a standard term of approval for the period, but image, it makes clear that Hodges did not equate ‘A ruined tomb on the river bank provided the immediate environs of the town (figure 7)? The asymmetrical

viewpoint,

the

suggested

landscape

applied to a typical late Mughal accuracy with optical illusionism. final subject for Hodges within the choice of a decaying subject, the context,

and

the

emphasis

on

obscuring foliage and other irregular forms such as the fallen architectural fragment in the foreground, all render the image formulaically Picturesque. This is not to doubt

that the drawing is, at some level, a record of what Hodges actually saw. When a

theorist such as Gilpin recommends the inclusion in a picture of falling fragments, bushy trees, or rough banks, it is entirely for compositional reasons: there is no suggestion that they might be included because they are present in the real scene.

Such objects to Gilpin are devices by which a scene can be rendered duly picturesque. However, since such objects can exist outside pictures and in the world, there is a

sense in which a scene can inherently be said to have picturesque qualities. So it need not be supposed that every picturesque element in a picture such as this indicates a distortion of fact: what makes the epithet appropriate for this drawing is Hodges’ choice of subject, and how he has positioned himself with respect to it.

Moving northwards from Rajmahal towards Sakrigali, Hodges took a broader

view of the terrain. He made

at least three drawings

of the Rajmahal

Hills, which

later served as the basis for an oil painting now in the Tate Gallery in London

(figure 8)."° In its centre ground, this is one of his most daringly open compositions

in oil, emphasized by — a characteristic motif — an abruptly cut off object appearing

at one side.

THOMAS

AND WILLIAM

DANIELL

The Daniells arrived in Rajmahal some seven years after Hodges, in October 1788. To

some extent it was inevitable that they should follow his path: travelling into the country from Calcutta, they shared his ambition to visit the major sites. Yet, they had

seen some of his prints, and their choice of sites was motivated also by a wish not to

be outdone by him. From William’s journal it is evident that they made a point of “passing through the caravanserai that Hodges has made an Aquatinta print of”.

Exploring the town, they were delighted to encounter “many very Picturesque

views indeed”. Clearly, these included the Palace of Shah Shyja, since William noted the “great trouble in getting the boats round the old pieces of building that had fell into the River as the current ran with an amazing swiftness”."' Their drawing of the

subject survives, but did not form the basis of any known later work.” They were

seemingly much more attracted to a spectacular subject which Hodges had overlooked: a tomb which is now

believed to have been that of Nawab

Ibrahim Khan. Thomas

Daniell’s striking oil painting of this subject is now in the Victoria Memorial Hall,

Calcutta (figure 9).'°

In general, pictures by the Daniells, in whatever medium, are more crisply drawn than those of Hodges with their broken and hatched lines. The rougher forms of

Hodges’ work more fully embody the Picturesque ideal but in other respects the

epithet is equally appropriate to the Daniels’ pictures. Thomas Daniell’s treatment of this building is a case in point. The symmetry of a formal building presents a problem to an aesthetic which favours irregular shapes, but Daniell has anticipated the advice given to artists by the theorist, Gilpin, that in such cases one should “beat down one

62

at Raje Mah’l Engraving by J. C. Armytage after William Daniell, 10 x 14.5 centimetres, Plate from The Oriental Annual (London, 1854). half of it’, if not literally then by the simple expediency of cutting off half the building with the picture edge to focus on one asymmetrical section of it. In the foreground,

the garden which would provide the usual context for such a building has been

turned by the artist into a piece of uneven ground with a winding path and sprouting

bushes; and again Daniell anticipated Gilpin’s advice: “Turn the lawn into a piece of

broken ground... break the edges of the walk; give it the rudeness of a road... and scatter around a few stones and brushwood; in a word, instead of making the whole

smooth, make it rough; and you make it also picturesque...

picture.”

You fit it for your

The dramatic treatment of the light is equally artificial, serving to lead the eye

towards the centre and the animating interest of the figures. The balance of the composition does not depend upon that of the subject (which is obscured) but on the interaction of three off-centre lines: the vertical minaret, the horizontal edge of the

terrace, and the diagonal of the shadow, which together create a centre of gravity. William's

attention was attracted by the same, more modest, tomb that Hodges

had drawn, a subject which he much later worked up for an engraving in The Oriental Annual (figure 10).8 The accompanying text gives the Daniels’ fullest

account

of the town:

“Rajemah'l

was

originally

a place

of great consequence,

of

which there are even now many ruins, though at this time it is a place of little consideration, presenting the appearance of a large, meanly built village. There are still to be seen, in a very dilapidated state of course, several rooms of what was

originally a spacious palace. Some of these apartments, as the remains show, were of

marble, and no doubt once glittered with all the gorgeous pomp of eastern magnificence: they are now the refuge ‘for the moles and for the bats’.... [Amongst the ruins is] a mausoleum,

still in a perfect state of preservation, surmounted

by a large dome; out

ofthis a vigorous peepul tree grew and nearly overshadowed the entire building.”

HODGES AND THE DANIELLS AT RAJMAHAL

64

Though based on William's journal and memories, this text was written by the Reverend Hobart Caunter — the volumes of The Oriental Annual being the result of

a collaboration between the artist and this hack writer. Like the artist, Caunter was not

above a little rearrangement of facts to suit his effect. In the same volume, he claims

explicitly that he accompanied the Daniells on their travels, which he did not. Describing their tour of Southern India, he begins “On 5th January... we commenced

our journey, like Doctor Syntax, in search of the picturesque,” and here too there has

been a

little judicious, not to say picturesque, alteration of the facts to suit his own

chronology, for William's journal shows that they began that tour on April 9. Carrying their own association of transience and decay, tombs appeal directly to a picturesque sensibility, and frequently form the subject of works by these artists. However, the Daniells were interested in a wide variety of building types, including some highly technical ones such as bridges. The famous image of the rope bridge in

Garhwal is one example (see figure 1 on pages 122-23). In Rajmahal there survives a

fine stone bridge of the Mughal period, on the road to the Hadaf, and this provided

the subject for another oil painting by Thomas, now in the Tate Gallery (figure 11).’”

The bridge is supported by unusual diamond-shaped piers, and these have been accurately represented.

On the other hand, Thomas has reduced the number of

arches from six to three, to present a more compact composition. The banks in the foreground are grouped to describe a rough arc, which reflects that of the tops of the

trees and seals the composition — at the risk of damming the river. This

bridge

is not

to be confused

with

another,

at Udhuanala,

to the

south

of

Rajmahal, which the Daniells also drew, as did Hodges.” Architecturally less impressive but historically more important, the Udhuanala bridge was the site of the British battle against Mir Kasim, already referred to. The construction of both bridges is attributed to Shah Shuja.

The survey and comparison of a number of images, made by Hodges and the

Daniells, of one relatively undisturbed site has raised issues about their practice of the Picturesque and its relation to accuracy. That the artists themselves expressed a

commitment to accuracy cannot be doubted. In a letter to William Hayley in 1793,

Hodges claimed that:

“Truth is the base of every work of mine... . I have sometimes

secretly quarrelled with the World for allowing me the Character of a man of Genius in the display of fanciful representations [rather] than of accurate representation.”

In a work of 1810, the Daniells declaimed even more evocatively: “The pencil is narrative to the eye... its representations are not liable to the omissions of memory, or to the misconceptions of fancy; whatever it communicates is a transcript of nature.”

Accuracy was a criterion of judgement which the artists applied to each other's work: Hodges remarked of the Daniells’ early views of Calcutta that they were “highly

to be commended for their accuracy”, while William Daniell evinced his jealousy of Hodges by frequent challenges on this point, as when he “ the [Agra] fort with the original & which

like all his othe:

value was widespread, not only amongst artists: the early nineteenth-century aristocratic

traveller, Lord Valentia, for example, chastised one Daniell print for relating “incorrectly” a matter of fact, and a Hodges print for bearing “no resemblance” to the subject.”” Whatever their motivation, such complaints are often just:

even with what remains of the actual scenes

comparing the pictures

reveals major discrepancies. But these

distortions arose less from the feebleness of the artists’ powers

of observation than

from their need to rearrange elements of a scene in accordance with a prevailing aesthetic.

That

aesthetic

disallowed

fanciful

invention

(as the artists’ comments

also

make clear) but aimed at a higher truth than the eye alone could discern: it aimed at nature's own intended pattern:

65

11. A Bridge near Rajmahal ‘Thomas Daniell, 182 Oil on canvas, 98 x 137 centin ctres, Courtesy The Tate Gallery, London.

Given

the

historical

context

of these

pictures,

some

art historians

have

been

tempted to see the distortions as in some manner connected with colonial expansion The author of what

is still the standard work on Hodges’ oeuvre, Isabel Stuebe, for

example, has suggested that “the freedom which Hodges used in rearranging the

topographical elements of the composition indicates that his primary interest is the

depiction of an idyllic view of Indian life under British rule" — and such ideas are now of course commonplace.”" It has to be admitted that such interpretations are lent

some support by the very vehemence of the Daniels’ famous denial of any complicity in colonial

exploitation:

“It was an honourable

feature in the late century,

that the

passion for discovery, originally kindled by the thirst for gold, was exalted to higher and

nobler aims than commercial

speculations.

Since this new

era of civilisation, a

liberal spirit of curiosity has prompted undertakings to which avarice lent no incentive, and fortune annexed

no reward:

associations have been

formed, not for piracy, but

humanity: science has had her adventurers, and philanthropy her achievements: the shores of Asia have been invaded by a race of students with no rapacity but for lettered relics; by naturalists, whose cruelty extends not to one human inhabitant; by philosophers,

ambitious for the extirpation of error and the diffusion of truth.

remains for the artist to claim his part in these guiltless spoliations, Europe

the

picturesque

beauties

of those

favoured

regions.”!

It

and to transport to

With

its rhetoric

of

conquest, one could be forgiven for reading this passage as protesting too much. The difficulty with such interpretations, however, is that they suppose all ideologies

to be the same. It is one thing to assert (what is undoubtedly true) that, for all of the

importance attached to accuracy, picturesque images are openly artificial constructions.

HODGES AND THE DANIELLS AT RAJMAHAL

66

It is a further and separate step to identify that process of construction as colonial. The pictures appeal to the values of a canon — the Picturesque — which might be

characterized as an ideology; but since that canon was the prevailing mode of the period and was applied in a great variety of contexts, including non-colonial ones, there is no justification for identifying it as peculiarly connected with colonial rule. On

the contrary, the use of aesthetic ideals which were so widespread, transfers away from the immediate context the terms of the idyll that is being built. The pictures

show what an eighteenth-century English audience expected any idyll to look like. To understand the pictures,

one must attempt to see them with eighteenth-century eyes,

as Hodges and the Daniells saw the buildings and landscapes which they drew.

NOTES 1. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection; Hodges Drawings 1/5. See Isabel Stuebe, The Life and Works of William Hodges, New York, 1979, no. 352. The drawing served as the basis for William Hodges, Select Views in India, 1785-8, pl. 4 (see Stuebe, op. cit,, no. 353). See also William Hodges, Travels in India, 1794, 2nd ed., London, p. 32. 2. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, 11/29; Stuebe no. 354. The aquatint version is Select Views no. 14 (Stuebe, op. cit., no. 355). The oil version (Stuebe, op. cit., no. 356) was relocated in 1985 and is now in 4 private collection. See also Travels, op. cit., p. 35. 3. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, 11/22. There is no aquatint version. See Travels, op. cit., p. 21 4, Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta, C993. See also Giles Eyre and Charles Greig, Landscape Paintings in the Victoria Memorial Collection, Calcutta, 1991, p. 5; N. R. Ray, n.d., A Descriptive Catalogue of Daniells Work in the Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, no. 9 (where it is wrongly attributed to Thomas Daniell); also possibly identifiable as Stuebe, op. cit.. no. 362. 5. Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta, C991. See Stuebe, op. cit., no. 358; Eyre and Greig, op. cit. p. 6 6. Travels, op. cit. p. 153; William Hodges, 4 Dissertation on the Prototypes of Architecture: Hindoo, Moorish and Gothic, London, 1787, p. 1. 7, William Gilpin, Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty: on Picturesque Travel: and on Sketching Landscape, London, 1792, pp. 68:70. 8 Engraved by Skelton after the Indian original; see Travels, op. cit, pl. f. p. 24 and p. 22. 9. Yale Center for British Ant, Paul Mellon Collection, 11/30. See Stuebe, op. cit., no, 368; for the oil version (private collection) see Stuebe, op. cit., no. 365. 10. Tate Gallery, London, T690. See Stuebe, op. cit., no. 368/9. The drawings are from the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, 1/14, 1/19, 11/17 corresponding to Stuebe, op. cit.. nos. 366, 367. 370. 11. Martin Hardie and Muriel Clayton, “Thomas Daniell, R. A; William Daniel, R. A.”, Walker's Quarterly, nos. 35: 36, 1932, p. 39. 12. Collection of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. London. See Mildred Archer, The Daniells in India, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., no, 3, 1962; Mildred Archer, Artist Adventurers in Eighteenth Century India: Thomas and William Daniell, Spink and Son, London, no. 2, 1974 13, Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta, C994, See Eyre and Greig, op. cit. p. 29; Ray, op. cit. no, 10; Maurice Shellim, India and the Daniell, London, 1979, p. 94. The related aquatint is T. & W. Daniell, Oriental Scenery, London, 1795-1808, 101/24. 14, Gilpin, op. cit., pp. 7-8. 15, Hobart Caunter and William Daniell, The Oriental Annual, vol. 1, 1834, p. 93. For an oil version, see Shellim, op. cit, p. 109. For the original drawing, see Archer, op. cit., 1962, no. 2; Archer, op. cit., 1974, no. 77, 16. The Oriental Annual, 1834, pp. 14-15, 21 17, See Shellim, op. cit., p. 98. For the drawing, see Archer, op. cit., 1962, no. 1, and Archer, op. cit., 1974, no. 1 18, Daniells — sce Archer, op. cit., 1974, no. 76. Hodges — Yale Center for British Art, Pau! Mellon Collection, 1/ 16, Select Views, no. 24; Stuebe, op. cit, N08. 417-19. 19. Hodges to Hayley quoted in Stuebe, op. cit., p. 2; Thomas and William Daniell, Pictieresque Voyage to India of China, London, 1810, Preface; Hodges, Travels, p. 16; W. Daniell in Hardie and Clayton, op. cit..p. by the Way 46; George Valentia, Voyages and Travels 10 India, London, vol. 1, 1809, pp. 356, 89. 20. Stuebe, op. cit. p. 47. See also Harriet Guest, “The Great Distinction: Figures of the Exotic in the Work of William Hodges’, Oxford Art Journal, vol. 12, no. 2, 1989, pp. 36°58. 21. Thomas and William Daniell, op. cit., 1810, Preface.

67

THE POET’S EYE THE

INTIMATE

LANDSCAPE

PATRICK

OF

GEORGE

CHINNERY

CONNER

I have not studied 25 years for

nothing ... there are not 6 at home

even who I would stand in awe of— but don't say I said so... .

Letter from Chinnery to Mrs Browne,

November 4, 1808

In his life and in his art, George Chinnery is close to the popular stereotype of an artistic temperament: volatile, capricious, brilliant, and exasperating by turn. To think of Chinnery is to call to mind a seemingly effortless penmanship, confident in line and

often

daring

in

effects

of light

and

mannered anatomy and arrogant gaze of his outrageous vermilion.

shade;

or

else,

in his

oil

portraits,

the

sitters, emphasized with dashing dabs of

Here, surely, is a case of an artist born and bred —his father and grandfather were notable writing masters, who may be assumed to have encouraged the young

George in his youthful experiments and during his teenage studies at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1796 at the age of 22 he went to Dublin and soon won a

reputation; one

singular degree”.! where

one

critic claimed that his work demonstrated “powers of genius in a very

In 1802 he quit Britain (for ever, as it transpired), sailing to Madras,

of his brothers

was

established

as a merchant.

One

might

well

imagine

that, given his talent and his connections, he had every prospect of success. Yet it appears that Chinnery’s early career ran a good deal less smoothly than this

account would suggest. Most of his surviving early material consists of miniatures and

small pencil portraits in the manner of Richard Cosway or Henry Edridge: these are generally capable, sometimes charming, but lack the élan which characterizes his later pictures. No more than a handful of oil paintings, all of them portraits, can be identified confidently as works by Chinnery produced in England or Ireland; and

in, although one or two are striking enough, they give little indication of that of portraiture for which Chinnery was to become renowned in Calcutta and Macau. As regards topographical watercolours, the present writer knows of only one reliably attributed example from the years before he sailed for the a beach

scene, signed Rowlandson.?

and

dated

1801,

which

has

the

air of a

half-hearted

imitation

of

‘THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

Nor were Chinnery’s first few years in India conspicuously successful. One finds him undertaking diverse projects in various media, including a series of etchings illustrating the buildings and activities of Madras (figure 1), oil portraits, and miniatures.

The sitters were often associates of his brother, but it is clear that in Madras Chinnery had difficulty in gaining portrait commissions on a regular basis; only in Calcutta was

he to find both the depth of resources and the atmosphere of social competition which were so valuable to a portrait painter. MADRAS

AND

DACCA:

THE

DEVELOPMENT

OF

A STYLE

Most of his drawings and watercolours of the environs of Madras are in a sketchy style, employing dots and small dashes in a way reminiscent of his English contemporary,

Thomas

Girtin.

In making

the

voyage

out

to Indid,

Chinnery

had

obviously forfeited the chance to study the latest techniques and fashions in English watercolour, but this was no great disadvantage to him — or so the evidence of his work suggests. On the contrary, it seems to have been through his own efforts in sketching and practising at Madras that he developed the fluency of line now associated with him so strongly. London in the 1790s had much to offer a young artist — the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds was still strong, and Thomas Lawrence and J. M. W.

Tumer

were

in the ascendant

(the

latter overlapped

with

Chinnery

at the

Royal

Academy Schools). Nevertheless, it was not until Chinnery reached India, where he was cut off from his artistic roots and compelled to rely upon his own observations

and experiments, that he was able to find a manner which was settled and satisfying,

From his Madras

years, one drawing

stands out as representing the sinuous

power

which came to exemplify his art: the study of eight palanquin bearers, resting beside their mabannab (figure 2).

After an initial journey to Calcutta to paint the portrait of Sir Henry Russell (recently appointed Chief Justice of Bengal), Chinnery went, in July 1808, to live in

Dacca at the house of Sir Charles D’Oyly. D'Oyly, who had recently been appointed

Collector of Dacca, was also an enthusiastic and prolific amateur artist; Chinnery’s instruction was of great benefit to D’Oyly (or so the latter affirmed), and in tum

Chinnery was stimulated to sketch the decaying Mughal ruins of the city (figure 3). Chinnery's drawings of Dacca constitute the first body of work in his mature style —

the free and yet detailed handling of the overgrown masonry, the dense foliage and entwining branches which embrace the old buildings but do not quite hide their distinctive forms. According to D’Oyly, it was Chinnery’s intention to publish these drawings but the plan came to nothing and, in the end, it was D’Oyly who published the set of engravings, Antiquities of Dacca (London, 1814-27), based on D’Oyly’s own drawings and incorporating only three minor vignettes by Chinnery.>

BENGAL

VILLAGE

SCENES

By May 1812 Chinnery was back in Calcutta, which remained his base for another

thirteen years. During this time portraits were his main preoccupation and his livelihood. He became successful, fashionable, and extravagant, but at intervals he would visit the villages in the district and execute series of carefully considered studies, both

drawings and paintings, of the inhabitants and their dwellings (figures 4-8). Some of them

were

drawn

in or near the Dutch

settlement

of Serampore:

the India Office

Library holds a group of these dated 1813, and a further series which was carried out

69

1. *Masooluh™ Boats at Madras, George Chinnery Fiching, Published in The Indian Magazine and European Miscellany (Madras, 1807) Private collection.

in the later part of 1821, when Chinnery took refuge in Serampore from his Calcutta creditors, Views of unkempt cottages and overgrown masonry were popular in contemporary British art, and Chinnery’s Bengali scenes conform to many of the ideals of the Picturesque which had been current in Britain at the end of the eighteenth century

Yet,

Chinnery’s

views

differ

in

a

number

of

respects

from

British

village

scenes

depicted by, for example, George Morland or Francis Wheatley. Vegetation is dominant luxuriant trees loom above the thatched bangla roofs. Several varieties of palm are to be se n, including date, coconut, and the broad-leaved plantain. Cows and bullocks are often in evidence, as are earthenware water pots, tightly rounded forms within a composition of drooping, straggling lines. Figures play a significant role in these village scenes. In the river women wash clothes or draw water, while men steer their sharply curved craft; on land Chinnery’s men sometimes attend to fires or cattle, but more often take their rest as they smoke 4 nargileh (hookah) fashioned from a coconut shell; the women may carry children on their hips, suckle them, or weave on their looms. The villagers appear dignified and clegant, whether carrying pots on a shoulder, squatting, or bending down in the shallows of a river. In contrast to the work of Chinnery’s Madras years (when his boatmen and water carriers at times approximated to the Antique models which he had studied in the Royal Academy Schools), the figures in his Bengal landscapes are subtly observed, although often drawn with great economy, a few lines indicating the fall of a garment and the action of an individual. His repetitions of the same subject

(figures 9 and 10) and his shorthand notes reveal how carefully he studied the stance and gestures of his figures, despite the small part — in purely physical terms — which they played in his compositions

70

‘THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

2. Palanquin Bearers, Madras, George Chinnery Pen and ink with watercolours, 35.5 x 49.5 centimetres, Collection of Malcom and Ursula Horsman

encil,

25.x 29 centim

Photograph courtesy Sotheby's, London,

‘THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

4. Studies of Figures Bathing in the Hooghly River. George Chinnery, April 19, 1813. Pencil, 30 x 17 centimetres Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

mn

72

Rye em

Village near Serampore Chinnery, May 2, 1813, 17 x 30 centimetres. fesy India Office Library and Re Village Bangla near Ser ge Chinnery, August J ink over pe

(OC), The British Library, London

THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

7. Figures Bathing and Drawing Water from a Tank. George Chinnery Pencil, pen, and brown ink, 9.5.x 23 centimetres. Courtesy Spink & Son Ltd., London.

In Chinnery’s watercolours and oils of Bengal, other themes are added — the ruined temple or mosque, often with a fallen minaret or cupola, and dramatic effects of glimmering sunset amid late evening shadow (figures 11-13). His range of subjectmatter remained limited. It might be said that he kept to his well-tried formulae, or (as Chinnery himself would have preferred to think) that his self-appointed mission lay not in cataloguing the many wonders of India as Thomas and William Daniell had done, but in achieving certain pictorial effects. Art required much more than observation, he told his pupil Mrs Browne: “when people talk of painting with their Eye, it is not the organ we see & see with on a clear day a mile on the Horizon, but the mind's Eye, the Poet's Eye... .”! What Chinnery failed to depict in Bengal is almost as remarkable as what he depicted. Of the great city of Calcutta where the artist was based for a dozen active years, he seems to have left practically no visual record. Portraits were his bread and butter, but his inclination lay rather with landscape and topography.” So secure was his position as the principal artist of British India that he must have received numerous requests for pictures commemorating the grand thoroughfares, public and_ private buildings which surrounded his Calcutta studio. He ignored all these, however, turning his attention instead to the villagers and villages of the neighbouring countryside. To some extent Chinnery’s attitude may be attributed to a desire to represent what he felt to be essentially Indian. In the course of his twenty-three years in the subcontinent he witnessed considerable changes in British attitudes towards India —a growing intolerance of indigenous customs and religions, and a hardening of attitudes against “going native” in any respect. In Calcutta Chinnery no doubt regarded himself as an old “India hand"; he had an Indian mistress and smoked the hookah at a time when both these activities were going out of fashion, and he mocked the obsequious young officers of the East India Company.’ He would surely have endorsed the

73

74

‘THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

8. Village Scene with Cattle George Chinnery Oil on canvas, 23 x 28 centimetres, sllection. Photograph courtesy Martyn Gi

75

cil drawing from a sketch-book. Courtesy India Office Library and Records (OIC), The British Library, London. 10. A Group of Studies, George Chinnery Pen and ink over traces of pencil, 10 x 20 centimetres, Collection of Ma and Ursula Horsman, Three of the studies re inscribed with the artist's sign for “correct” — “+!

76

THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

12. Bathers by a Ruined Tomb. George Chinnery Oil on canvas, 19 x 27.5 centimetres Collection R. J. F. Brothers. Photograph courtesy Martyn Gregory Gallery, London

13, Riverside Ruins, Bengal George Chinnery Oil on canvas, 17.5 x 23 centimetres Collection R.J. F. Brothers.

‘THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

78

14, Ghats at Benares. Edward Lear, circa December 14, 1873, Watercolour, 16.5 x 26 centimetres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10), The British Library, London, sentiments expressed some years later by the artist-traveller, Valentine Prinsep (whose

uncles had been Chinnery’s friends and pupils in Calcutta); “... I fear that each day we

are becoming more English in India. Each year communication becomes more easy between England and her great Empire in India. Each year greater facility is offered to the

English

official

to

visit

his

native

land,

and

so

that

official

becomes

more

and more a camper and sojourner in India. With his eyes fixed on England, he

does not identify himself with the people and the country, with which he has litle

sympathy... .””

CHINNERY

Another kindred spirit was

Edward

AND

LEAR

Lear, who visited Calcutta some

fifty years after

Chinnery left it. Despite his travelling at the invitation of the Earl of Northbrook,

Viceroy of India, Lear made no secret of his distaste for the viceregal ceremonies of “Hustlefussabad” (as he nicknamed the city). He described of the wealthiest British residents lived in grand style, fearful humbug". A short drive out of Calcutta, on the “beautiful bits of villages and verdure; I do not think I ever interesting

and

drawable

stuff in so small

a space

and

Chowringhee, as a “road of other hand, he before saw so

so short

a time”.

where some palaces and rejoiced in much novel Brindaban,

too, Lear found “wholly Indian and picturesque”." Likewise Valentine Prinsep,

who

apparently shared Lear's notion that “picturesque” and “English” were mutually exclusive

qualities:

at the British resort of Simla,

‘one would imagine oneself at Margate”.” .

“everything is so English and unpicturesque..

‘THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

79

It was not only the architectural creations of the British in Bengal which

did not

interest Chinnery, he also omitted to paint the great Indian temples and mosques which had furnished many fine subjects for his predecessors in India (such as William

Hodges and the Daniells), and for his successors (notably Sir Charles D’Oyly, James Baillie

Fraser,

and

William

Wood

junior).

All these

concentration

and

perseverance — attributes

artists were

willing

and

able

to

lacking

in

submit to the demands of the engraver. The preparation of drawings from which an engraver could work required long hours of labour and called for a capacity for

George Chinnery’s extrovert personality.

which

were

conspicuously

Above all, Chinnery would have been aware of the achievements of Thomas and William Daniell who had returned to England in 1794 after seven and a half years

spent in India assiduously sketching the principal buildings and spectacles of the sub-

continent. Thomas’ twelve Views of Calcutta (Calcutta, 1786-88) were the first detailed prints of the city to be published: they were locally printed, and Thomas Daniell

complained to his fellow-artist Ozias Humphry:

“I was obliged to stand Painter,

Engraver, Coppersmith, Printer and Printer’s Devil myself’.

The Daniells worked on

their magnum opus, the 144 aquatint plates known as Oriental Scenery, after their return to England in 1794: all of them had been published by the time Chinnery

settled in Calcutta.

William Daniell was to claim that in the first seven years back in

England he often laboured from six o'clock in the morning until midnight." Although Chinnery would often complain of the pressure of work and allude to his busy schedule of sittings and social engagements,

he could surely not have sustained the

sort of conscientious discipline which the Daniells imposed upon themselves.

On the other hand, it could be said that many of the Daniels’ prints are

somewhat

static and lacking in animation,

despite the groups of figures which often

appear in the foreground. It was left to Chinnery to represent the vivid lives of the Indians themselves —the village people at work and rest, their dwellings, their utensils, and their animals. Once again the words of Edward Lear are apposite: visiting Benares in 1873, Lear found the place quite at odds with the preconceptions which

had

been

formed

in him

by the

Daniells’

Oriental Scenery.

“How

well

remember the views of Benares by Daniell, R. A.; pallid, gray, sad, solemn. I had always supposed this place a melancholy, or at least a staid and soberly-coloured spot, a gray record of bygone

days.

Instead,

| find it one

of the most

I

abundantly

bruyant, and startlingly radiant of places full of bustle and movement” (figure 14). Chinnery, too, was reacting against the hard-edged formula established by the Daniells, substituting a vision of village landscape in which structures do not stand out from

their natural surroundings, nor compete with them for attention, but in which man and nature seem to have achieved a kind of equilibrium; the cracking mud wall and sagging thatch blend into the luxuriant vegetation which surrounds them.

The similarities between Chinnery and Lear go further. Heavily built and large-

featured,

both enjoyed

a reputation

for droll eccentricity,

and made

much

of their

own supposed ugliness, whether in conversation or in self-portraiture.'’ Both survived

and

worked

into

old

age,

despite

recurrent

worries

about

travelled out to India at the age of sixty-one, and Chinnery

time of his six-month visit

health

and

income;

Lear

was seventy-two at the

to Hong Kong. Neither man was quite comfortable as a

painter of exhibition pieces in oils; the genius of each lay in informal draughtsmanship, in pen

and

ink,

and

in watercolour.

“finished” works, and yet they considerations would require — and Lear a habit, perhaps even Moreover, each employed

Their

sketches

served

as

aides-mémoire

for

produced far more sketches than purely commercial evidently the act of sketching became for both Chinnery a compulsion. a personal notation, more characteristic than any

THE INTIMATE LANDSCAPE OF GEORGE CHINNERY

80

signature. In Lear's work this notation takes the form of comically phonetic spelling

Cbloo ski", “rox” etc.), but in Chinnery's

exoticism.

Chinnery

used

the

Gurney

case, the shorthand lends a special taste of

shorthand

system,

which

he

had

doubtless

learnt in his youth. In the nineteenth century, the Gurney system was gradually

superseded by other methods, notably Pitman’s, so that to most of Chinnery’s contemporaries in the Far East, the squiggling appendages to his drawings must have

appeared as foreign as they do to us today. It is true that his shorthand can be translated by painstaking reference to eighteenth-century Gurney dictionaries; but, seen as a part of a drawing of a Bengali village or a street market in Macau,

Chinnery's script appears to Western eyes as alien as the cryptic signs or ideograms of

a long-vanished civilization. No doubt Chinnery cherished this element of mystery in his art. He aspired to the

status of poet not only in his “eye” but, insofar as it suited him, in his life. When asked to make some effort to repay his Calcutta creditors, he appealed — only half

jokingly — for the license accorded to poetic genius: “Chain Lord Byron to a rock, could he have written such poetry as his free spirit dictates?" It is even conceivable

that he encouraged the widespread misconception that he was Irish by birth. He

might then have supported the notion, subsequently expressed by Val Prinsep, that the English were “a nation without poetry... apt to be guided by the hard and fast line of the law, and devoid of sentiment or enthusiasm. Now the Indian, like the Irishman,

is full of poetry and imagination...

“5

NOTES L.A critical review of the First Annual Exhibition of Paintings... of the Irish Artists, Dublin, 1800, p. 12. 2. Illustrated in Patrick Conner, George Chinnery 1774-1852. Arist of India and the China Coast. Woodbridge. England, 1993, pl. 2 3. Letter of Nov. 15, 1808, from D’Oyly to Warren Hastings, British Library Add. MS 29184, f.11-12; quoted in Conner, op. cit. pp. 90-91 4, eter of Nov. 4, 1816, in Richard Ormond, “George Chinnery and his pupil Mrs. Browne”, Journal of the Walpole Society, vol. XLIV, 1974, p. 151 5, See Eden Puget (ed.), Letters and Memorials of General the Hon. Sir Edward Paget. G.CB.. London, 1898, p. 17% (quoted in Conner, op. cit. p. 129), and for a lost painting by Chinnery of the Calcutta Bund, see William C. Hunter, Bits of Old China, London. 1885, pp. 273-74, and Conner, op. cit, p. 260. 6. See Hunter, op. cit., pp. 265-06, and. 273-74. Valentine (Val) Prinsep, Jmperial India, London, 1879, p. 37 7. Prinsep. loc. cit. 8 See Ray Murphy (ed), Edward Lear's Indian Journal, London, 1953, pp. 50, 53. and 94, entry for December 14. 1873 9. Prinsep. ap, cit. p. 26, 10. Letter of November 7, 1788, quoted in Mildred Archer, Karly Views of India: the Picturesque Journe) of Thomas and William Daniell 1786-1794. London, W980, pp. 15-16. 11, Ibid. p. 224 12, See Murphy (ed.). op. cit. p. 46. 13, “Passers-by would say ‘There goes old Chinnery; what an ugly fellow... ". chimed Chinnery (Hunter. op. cit p. 27D; and see Conner. op, cit. pp. 23843: “His visage is more or less hideous... wrote Lear of himself: see Holbrook Jackson (ed.). The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear, London, 1947. vols, vii and viii; see also Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear the Life of a Wanderer, London, 1968, p, 35; and “Edward Lear 1812-1888", Royal Academy of Ans, London, 1985, pp. 131 and 185-86 14, Manuscript Memoir of William Prinsep, India Olfice Library and Records, London, MSS Fur D1160, vol. 1 p. 352 15, Valentine Prinsep. op. cit. p. 546. FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Detail of self-portrait of George Chinnery courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London

81

A

CAREER

IN ART

SIR CHARLES D’OYLY

J. P. LOSTY

I shall some time hence please God offer you as companions a few of the ruins of the city of Dacca which I assure you are exquisite for their magnificence & elegance & are calculated to tempt the pencil of an artist.

Sir Charles D’Oyly to Warren

Hastings,

1808

Charles D’Oyly is perhaps the most famous of the amateur British artists who depicted

the Indian scene, and undoubtedly the most applauded by his contemporaries. He

was the only one who was prepared to make a career devoting himself to art “beyond perhaps what an amateur ought”, as he wrote to Warren Hastings. He drew

throughout his life and was still sketching during his retirement in Italy. His most fertile and fruitful period, however, was at Patna in the 1820s, when his seemingly minimal duties as opium agent for the East India Company allowed him ample scope

for art: “His pencil like his hookah-snake was always in his hand,” according to William Prinsep, For when, in 1830, his cousin Charlotte D’Oyly called him “the far-famed drawer Sir Charles D’Oyly", he was already well known in England. In 1813, Edward Orme had published two sets of his amusing drawings of British society in India, while a year later John Landseer began to publish his views of Dac a. In 1828 his satirical verse epic Tom Raw, the Griffin appeared, illustrated with his own drawings (albeit in theory anonymously); and in this same year was published Bishop Heber’s journal, in which he wrote:

“He is the best gentleman-artist | ever met with.”

BACKGROUND

AND

FORMATIVE

YEARS

D’Oyly was born in India in September 1781 (only his date of baptism is recorded,

September

16),

the

son

of Sir John

Hadley

D'Oyly,

the

sixth

Baronet,

who

was

Resident at the court of the Nawab of Bengal at Murshidabad. The young Charles returned to England with his parents in 1785 to enjoy the fortune which Sir John had

SIR CHARLES DOYLY

82

accumulated at Murshidabad, “the most lucrative post in the Company’s service”,

according to William Hickey. He was educated at home and in 1797, before he was

sixteen years old, he followed his father into the Company's Bengal Civil Service with

introductions from Warren Hastings. Sir John D’Oyly and Hastings were great friends

Hastings’ wife, Marian, was Charles's godmother) and it was mainly as a result of these connections that Charles quickly became

a member

of Governor-General

the

Marquess Wellesley's “family”: by 1803 he was the head of Lord Wellesley's office with a salary of a thousand rupees per month. This promising start to his career D’Oyly owed clearly to the influence of Warren Hastings

and

his

own

personality,

rather

than

to any

conspicuous

administrative

talents. He frankly acknowledged his disposition, in a letter to Warren Hastings in 1803, to be “rather an indolent one”, but resolved to fight against it. As a boy he was clearly lovable, good-natured, charming, and handsome, and retained this character throughout his life. His love of society and his status (he inherited the baronetcy in 1818, while his second marriage was to Eliza, a cousin of the Governor-General Lord

Hastings’ wife) can only have contributed to his contemporary fame. LANDSCAPE

INTERESTS

D’Oyly’s subject matter is drawn largely from rural India, from Bengal and Bihar: scenes of picturesque village life with huts, cattle, and villagers set against the sub-tropical greenery and lush waters of Bengal; the many moods of the immense river Ganges

as it flowed

through

Eastern India; and

the harsher,

more

mountainous

regions dividing Bengal from Bihar, through which D’Oyly often travelled between

Patna and Calcutta. For grander buildings and townscapes, he turned to the great semi-ruined cities of Mughal India such as Dacca and Patna, and to the temples at

pilgrimage centres such as Gaya and Bodh Gaya. Despite his years in Calcutta, comparatively little of his work actually records the bustling city, and even here he preferred to concentrate on the picturesque Indian city rather than the palatial European

one.

D’Oyly’s work falls naturally into three fields. His drawings in pencil, ink, or

wash are often of considerable topographical interest and can show great skill and sensitivity; but his watercolours, in general, strike the modem

eye as charming rather

than important. The vast majority of his watercolours are little vignettes on embossed cards which were meant as presents. His lithographic work at Patna most fully illustrates his pictorial range in both landscape and portraiture. D’Oyly’s much

rarer

oil paintings are, as yet, the least known and studied of his work. Such examples have begun to be disentangled from the work of other artists, and George Chinnery, only recently. Throughout his artistic constantly to the same subjects, recording his journeys or his spot with rapid pencil or pen work in his sketch-books; these

such as William Daniell career, D’Oyly returned surroundings first on the sketches then served as

the basic compositions of more worked-up wash drawings or watercolours, while eventually the subject could appear in print (engravings or lithographs) and in oils. EARLY YEARS IN CALCUTTA

Early drawings by D'Oyly are very rare, the earliest surviving being sent as part of a

letter illustrating a cheetah

hunt at Barrackpore

about

1803, which

is in the

India

Office Library. One learns of other drawings through his correspondence with Warren

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

1. The Immersion of the Goddess. Charles DOyly, circa 1820. Watercolour, 167 x 23 centimetres Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London, Hastings. The general retrenchment after Lord Wellesley's extravagance in India resulted

in D’Oyly being out of employ for some time. In 1806 he wrote to Warren Hastings

from Alipur and explained how he was filling his days: “You always admired my talent for drawing. The consequence of constant practice which my idle situation has for some time allowed is improvement, and I find my hand much more free than it

was

He also noted that he had just finished four very large drawings, views up and down the river, a nearby mosque, and a banyan tree, of which he proposed to send to Hastings before having them engraved: “These I know you will value particularly the tree. To this wonderful work of nature I devoted four days of the last cold weather and while sitting under the spreading branches I could not help wondering that no painter had been induced to exert his talents in describing this tree

as it ought to be — alone. That is that it should not be brought in as a subservient

feature of the landscape as Daniell has made it but that it should stand in the picture

as it does in nature unrivalled.” This is the first expression of D’Oyly’s obvious love of the Indian landscape and its botanical glories. The sixth plate of his. Views of Calcutta and its Environs (although published long after in 1848) has, as its only subject, a great banyan tre and many of the plates of this volume are dominated by, or have as their central feature, one of the great trees of India

83

2. Gateway into Patna Charles D’Oyly, 1823 Pen-and-ink, 26 x 36.25 centimetres, Courtesy India Office onary and Records (OIC), The British Library, lon

3. Tombs near Hajipur Charles D'Oyly, 1823 Pen-andink, 26 x 36 Courtesy India Office The British Library, Lond

SIR CHARLES D/OYLY

4. Residenceof J. A. Carrie, Howrah Charles D'Oyly, 1833. Pen-and-ink, size unknown, Courtesy Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta

5. The Chitpore Bazaar, Calcutta Charles D’Oyly, 1833, Pen-and-ink, size unknown Courtesy Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta,

85

6. North Front of Government House from Spence's Hotel, Calcutta. Charles D’Oyly, circa 1840, Pencil and wash, 27 x 43 cent Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10), The British Library, London. rt of the City of Calcutta (Clive Stree) Charles D’Oyly, 1840. Pencil and wash, 27 x 43 cent netres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O1OC), The British Library, London,

SIR CHARLES DOYLY

GEORGE

CHINNERY’S

INFLUENCE

AND

87

D'OYLY's

DACCA

VIEWS

D’Oyly's rural bias was reinforced when in 1807 he came under the influence of George Chinnery. Chinnery had arrived in India at Madras in 1802, moving to Calcutta

in 1807, where he acquired a considerable reputation as a teacher of amateur artists.

Charles D'Oyly’s first major posting was as Collector of Dacca from 1808 to 1812, and

Chinnery went to stay with him there for three of these years. It was here that Chinnery developed his own distinctive style of landscape. Chinnery’s influence on D'Oyly’s drawing technique is obvious, but their love of drawing rural India and its people and animals seems to have been a

taste they developed together.

Writing to Warren Hastings from Dacca in 1808, D’Oyly acknowledged Chinnery's

influence on him. This also made him unhappy with the earlier work which he had sent him: “I shall some time hence please God offer you as companions a few of the ruins of the city of Dacca which I assure you are exquisite for their magnificence & elegance & are calculated to tempt the pencil of an artist.” He went on to say that

Chinnery had already collected some fifty views of ruins in anticipation of publication and that “all these I am drawing to supply me in future with material for pictures”.

Chinnery’s proposed publication never materialized and it is D’Oyly’s views that were eventuaily published between 1814 and 1827.

D’Oyly entrusted his friend, Edward Strachey, with his book of pencil drawings

of Dacca

to take to John

Landseer in London

to be engraved.

He also added later

views, for he afterwards wrote to Strachey that he had “nearly completed another

Paugla Pool with a distant view of Dacca which Chinnery says will be the ne plus

ultra ultimate] of pencil drawing. I like it certainly very much and agree with him in

thinking

it the

best

and

the

most

picturesque

of the

whole

collection.”

This

is

presumably the view engraved by Landseer in 1817. His letters to Strachey, incidentally, make it clear that the author of the text which accompanies the incomplete series of his Dacca views was not D'Oyly poet, and amateur artist.

himself but James

RETURN

TO

Atkinson,

the Persian scholar,

CALCUTTA

In 1812 D'Oyly returned to Calcutta, first as Deputy Collector and then Collector of

Government Customs and Town Duties. Surprisingly little seems to have emerged

from D'Oyly's first major Calcutta period, where he became a leading resident of the

city and the centre of its artistic and musical life. Chinnery himself had his studio in

Garstin’s Buildings, north of St John’s Church. His eccentricities are gently caricatured in D’Oyly’s amusing description of him in the fifth canto of his Tom Raw, the Griffin This mock-epic poem, published anonymously in London in 1828, satirizes the pretensions

of Calcutta

society and

pokes

fun at its buildings.

D’Oyly

produced

series of watercolours as the accompanying illustrations; not all were published,

a

including one showing the immersion in the Hooghly of an image of Durga at the end of the Durga Puja (figure 1). Here, D’Oyly’s generally irreverent approach to Indian, as well as British, customs is very apparent. THE

PATNA

PERIOD,

1820-32

With the move to Patna in 1820, D’Oyly entered a new phase of his artistic life. His official work as opium agent seems to have left him ample time for his painting and

8, Near the Strand Calcutta Charles D'Oyly, 1840, Pencil and wash, 27 x 43 centimetres Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

9. Near the Strand Calcutta, George Francis White, 1845-48, Pencil, 28 x 43.5 centimetres. Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

10, Hindoo Temple near the Strand Road Coloured lithograph by Dickinson & Co,, 1848, after George Francis White based on an original drawing by Charles DOyly, plate 24 of Views of Calcutta and its Environs 28 x 41.5 centimetres. Collection of Roy and Pauline Rohatgi

11, Indian Village Scene Charles D'Oyly, circa 1810. Oil on canvas, 22 x 28 centimetres, Courtesy of Indar Pasricha Fine Arts

printing enthusiasms. His watercolours from this period have a translucent limpidity

and even the small ones are fresh and charming, although they hardly rise to the level of distinction to be expected from his fame. D'Oyly’s work in pen-and-ink or wash seems,

to the modern

viewer, altogether more serious. An album

in the India Office

Library contains more than eighty large pen-and-ink drawings dated meticulously in 1823 and 1824, which show his response to views along the New Road, the direct route

between

Calcutta

and

Benares.

Although

he

must

have

travelled

the

road

before, a perhaps more leisurely journey undertaken with Lady D'Oyly in January and February 1823 formed the subject of a large part of this album. It also proved to be a

rich source for his compositions over the next decade.

Although some of these drawings are sufficiently picturesque in themselves to

serve as the basis for oil paintings, most of them depart from Picturesque principles of

composition; they could be used only in such a publication as his Sketches of the New

Road from Calcutta to Gyab of 1830, with its continuous series of views along this

route. Regardless of correct principles, however, one can appreciate these drawings equally for their vivid depictions of hills, rivers, towns, or temples. D’Oyly’s unexplained high viewpoint for his street scenes (is he on the back of an elephant?) allows him

not only a good vista in the otherwise narrow and crowded streets of Patna, but also to record in vivid detail the different textures of the roofs, their makeshift patches and vegetation

(figure 2).

In the

later version

in oils, now

in the

Yale

Center

for British

Art, much of this vivid and picturesque detail has been lost. In the drawing depicting Muslim tombs near Hajipur, he lowered the viewpoint to allow the almost oppressive

density of the trees to fill the upper part of the page (figure 3)

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

oO

12. The D'Oyly Drawing Room at Patna Charles D’Oyly, 1820-24 ‘Watercolour, 18 x 34.4 centimetres. Courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

LAST

YEARS

IN CALCUTTA.

In 1832, D’Oyly left Patna and took a long leave at the Cape of Good Hope, still sketching frequently before returning to Calcutta in 1833 as Senior Member of the Board of Customs, Salt and Opium, and of the Marine Board.

Here he spent his last

years in India and began work on a series of views in the city. These eventually saw

publication as Views of Calcutta and its Environs only in 1848, three years after his

death. Published by Dickinson & Co in London, they were produced as both coloured and uncoloured

lithographs. A sketch-book of pen-and-ink drawings (now

in the

Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta) dating from his last years in the city, shows him to be struggling with the rendition of European classical architecture. His buildings seen

in isolation seem especially flimsy (figure 4). He is more successful when he depicts

a variety of buildings,

as in a view of the north front of Government

House

from

Spence's Hotel, or especially when he is drawing typical Bengali buildings (figure 5) or landscape dominated by his beloved trees. D’Oyly was still working on this Calcutta material after his official retirement in 1838, but in the meanwhile left Calcutta for the last time on May 8, 1838 on board the Thomas Grenville bound for Cape Town and London. The archives in Cape Town

record the ship's departure for London on May 19 that same year. By November 1840

he had reached Italy, where he retired to a villa, the Casino Pecori, overlooking the

Arno in Florence. Here he continued sketching and drawing, since an album of his Swiss and Italian views (in the Yale Center for British Art) is dated between 1842.

He

died at Leghorn

in 1845.

1840 and

Three new signed drawings of Calcutta (two of them dated 1840) have recently

come to light. They are all in pencil with wash on tinted paper, turning his pen-and-

ink ideas into wash drawings more suitable for lithography. One of them, undated, is

93

13, Travellers Passing the Village of Chatra Chatri, Bihar. Charles D’Oyly, circa 1825. Oil on canvas, 21.5 x 28 centimetres, Private collection, Photograph courtesy of Sotheby & Co., London,

94

SIR CHARLES DOYLY

16. The Bodhi Tree at the Bodh Gaya Temple.

97

19. The Great Kuttra Engraving by John Landseer, 1823, after Charles D’Oyly, from The Antiquities of Dacca 18 x 25 centimetres. Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

20. Mosque in the Suburbs of Dacca Engraving by John Landseer, 1825, after Charles D’Oyly from The Antiquities of Dacca. 18 x 25.5 centimetres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C) ‘The British Library, London

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

98

the same view of the north of Government House from Spence’s Hotel (figure 6) as in the Victoria Memorial Hall sketch-book. Here the perspective is erratic — the lines of the buildings, meant to converge on the half-hidden front of Government House, are wrong, as is the portico of the classical facade on the right. D’Oyly never learnt to solve such problems, although his command of detail is as engaging as ever: the adjutant bird has a gecko wriggling in its beak, while another gecko on the roof is scuttling away from danger.

eMore

successful

are the other

two views

of Calcutta,

both

signed

and

inscribed

with D’Oyly’s characteristic care “ad naturam delt. 1840”. What D’Oyly means by this is unclear, for the phrase ad naturam normally implies that the artist is standing sketching in front of his subject. Both of these drawings, one inscribed “Part of the City of Calcutta” (figure 7), the other “Near the Strand Calcutta” (figure 8) are the basis of plates in his book of Calcutta views. These became “View in Clive Street” and

“Hindoo Temple near the Strand Road” (figure 10) respectively.

It is uncertain how many of the original ideas for the set of published lithographic

views of Calcutta can be attributed to D'Oyly alone. He could never, for example, have seen the new St Paul's Cathedral (begun only in 1839), a view of which is

published in his volume. Whereas it might be possible that he copied someone else's view, such as William Clerihew’s, for this set, a more likely alternative (in the light of recently discovered material) is that the publisher simply used Clerihew's print and attributed D’Oyly’s name to it. There are no surviving watercolours for the set of lithographs but there is, in the

Yale Center for British Art, a group of wash drawings unsigned but hitherto attributed

to D’Oyly, as most of them are of the same subjects as the lithographs. Two albums, however, have recently come to light containing wash drawings and ink or pencil

drawings on tracing paper, which include many of the same subjects as D’Oyly’s set

of lithographs, but these are all signed by George Francis White. The albums are now

in the India Office

Library and Records. GEORGE

Captain,

later Colonel,

FRANCIS

White was

WHITE

(1808-98)

in India with the 31st Regiment

of Foot from

1825.

A highly competent artist, his earlier drawings had been engraved in various publications. After his-return to England in 1846, his drawings of the Himalayas were used by Robert Burford for a panorama

exhibited at Leicester Square in 1847. It is clear from

White's albums that he was also working on the idea of a panorama of Calcutta

incorporating all the wide views of Calcutta from the Maidan attributed to D’Oyly in

the published lithographs. In the absence of any documentation, there can only be speculation about White's role in the publication. After D’Oyly’s death in 1845, White seems to have been employed to prepare D'Oyly’s material for publication, and indeed

to include

his own

material

in the project.

Even

so, why

he should

have

allowed his considerable role to have been suppressed remains a mystery. The two drawings signed by D’Oyly and dated 1840 would appear to have been

worked on for the lithographers, but it is noticeable that the final printed versions are

considerably different. The intermediate stage is attributable to White, for both these subjects occur in the White albums, slightly reworked and tightened as in the final

lithographs (figures 9 and 10). These drawings, both in the White albums and in the Yale Center for British Art, present more problems of interpretation than can be

discussed here, but clearly the published Calcutta views must be regarded as being based only partly on D'Oyly's work.

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

DOYLY’S

OIL

99

PAINTINGS

D’Oyly must have received instruction in oil painting, as he did in watercolour and

drawing,

from George

Chinnery

during

the latter's time with

him at Dacca;

in his

letters to Strachey of 1811, D'Oyly mentions that he had sent two oil pictures to Lord

Minto, the Governor-General. Although their subject is unknown, it is unlikely on technical grounds that they can be the two highly accomplished oils of Dacca, which appeared in London in 1974 and which have the same basis as two of the engraved views by John Landseer.

An attractive little oil painting of Bengal village life is characteristic of D’'Oyly's

early style (figure 11). This

is still much under Chinnery’s influence and hence

probably dates from his Dacca period. A D'Oyly lithograph of about

1828 treats the

same subject, adding that it was taken originally from an outline sketch by Chinnery.

D'Oyly approached composition in his oil paintings in a different way from his drawings and often, as here, set up a formal structure with his figures in the foreground forming the base of a triangle. Here the woman, the cattle, and the group of villagers collecting water form a line across the base of the painting but, in fact, are meant to

be on

different

planes.

Characteristic

of D’Oyly’s

unassisted

work

in oils are

the

simple structure, the naturalism of his subject (this is a real village, not a subject set

up to be a composition in the Picturesque), and the highlights of bright colour with which he clothes his villagers. In his work in oils, he found it easier to compose

subjects viewed frontally rather than obliquely (except when based on another artist's

work). This, to a certain extent, eliminated the need for changes in colour tone to suggest recession, one of the most difficult aspects of painting in oils for amateurs to

master.

D'Oyly’s exposure to the hilly landscape of Bihar made him vary his style and methods of composition, although he still made use of the figural and animal studies,

learnt originally with Chinnery in Dacca, Mountains required different treatment, for

which D’Oyly returned to earlier influences on his work. Many of his paintings imitate

the formal structure of the examples found in the publications of the theorist of the Picturesque, William Gilpin. In his artistic work done in Bihar, D'Oyly was much under the influence of Richard Wilson (1714-82), the founder of the English landscape

school, whose majestic landscape paintings he would have known before he left England.

Indeed, the Proceedings of the Behar School of Athens, a manuscript memoir

of the activities of D'Oyly

and

his circle of artistic friends,

states that he also had

original drawings by Wilson hanging in his drawing-room in Patna THE MACNABB

PAINTINGS

Two watercolours of this drawing-room in Patna, sent to his sister in England in September 1824 and now in the Yale Center for British Art, show the large numbers of pictures displayed

in the room.

Of particular

interest is the arrangement

of the

small pictures, such as those at the garden end of the drawing-room, in groups of four around one of the wall girandoles (figure 12). These small groups correspond to working method. Two such sets, originally given before 1830 to James Munro Macnabb and his wife, Jean Mary (Lady D‘Oyly’s cousin), appeared on the

London market in 1992; the sets could easily be divided by size and frame type into two groups of four. This new group of eight pictures adds considerably to the corpus of D’Oyly’s

work in oils. In their formal structure and lyrical

brushwork with subtle glowing

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

100

colours, they generally owe more to Wilson than to Chinnery. The subjects illustrate

the landscape of Bihar, both rivers and hinterland, which D’Oyly first explored on his joumeys between Calcutta and Benares.

Bishop Heber noted the great impression this

landscape made on him: “He says India is full of beautiful and picturesque country if people would stir but a little way from the banks of the Ganges.” Several paintings in the Macnabb group include a party of travellers with their elephant, camels, top-hatted riders, suggesting the D’Oylys' own journeys to and from Calcutta.

and

The subjects are familiar from elsewhere in D’Oyly’s work. One painting shows

the grand

hills with the village of Chatra

Chatri beneath,

as revealed after passing

through the Chatra Pass, about twenty miles south-east of Hazaribagh (figure 13). D’Oyly described the effect in the similar view in his Sketches of the New Road: “Emerging from the picturesque pass, the ground becomes comparatively level, and the eye enjoys a fine view of the receding range of hills partially covered with vegetation

and

brightened

by

a thousand

varied

tints thrown

upon

them

by

the

morning sun. On each side of the road are large blocks of dark granite, and in the

middle distance the pretty little village of Chittroo Chutta situated amidst a luxuriant patch of cultivation finely contrasted by the grandeur of the hills beyond it.” In this and other paintings of the Bihar hills, D'Oyly tried to capture the “thousand varied tints” with his impressionist brushwork.

By contrast is an evening encampment in the plains (figure 14) requiring the

colour effects which earlier artists of the Indian landscape with their cool, northern

palettes had scarcely attempted. In this scene, the travellers have pitched their tents in a grove

with

a stream

running

through

it. The

camels

and

elephants

are

being

unloaded and the smoke from a camp-fire winds its way upwards into the still air. Trees thrust their way across a sky suffused by the golden, smoky light of an Indian dusk. Typically, D’Oyly played down the European-style tents and concentrated on the animals and their handlers. His treatment of light and trees here recalls the work

of Richard Wilson and, through him, the landscape of the Roman Campagna as painted by Claude. D’Oyly is still over-reliant in his oil paintings on simple triangular structures, too fond of stringing elements of the foreground into lines, thereby divorcing foreground from background. In several paintings of this group, the travellers, whether on

horseback or in boats, are depicted crossing the picture in the middle distance. In a more ambitious composition, such as his view of the Rock of Jahngira in the Ganges

off Sultanganj (figure 15), D’Oyly tried to follow the Picturesque idea much favoured

by Chinnery, of casting shadows across the foreground (here in strong diagonals of rocks and buildings), thus enabling him to knit foreground and background through the river. This is one of D'Oyly's most attractive compositions with a striking contrast

of light between the dark foreground and the brilliantly lit middle ground.

It should be noted that two of Macnabb's inventories, one taken in Benares in

1830 just prior to departure and another twenty

years later, refer to these eight oil

paintings as being by “Sir Charles and Lady D’Oyly". How much reliance should be

placed on this attribution is not clear. A drawing by D’Oyly’s friend, James Atkinson, in 1826 shows D’Oyly seated in his studio and working on a painting with his wife

sitting beside him, although whether she is there just to hold his brushes or to add to the picture herself is unclear. The second Lady D'Oyly was a considerable artist in her own right, and indeed the lithographed version of the Rock of Jahngira attributes the original composition to her.

D’Oyly was fascinated by the Great Temple at Bodh Gaya and it often appears in

his work in all media. A painting of the whole temple,

as seen from the river, appears

in the Macnabb group but more interesting perhaps is another larger painting, also

101

21. Paugla Pool at Dacca. Charles D‘Oyly, 1825-30. Oil on canvas, 71.7 x 93.9 centimetres, Courtesy of The Lawrie Tea Corporation.

from the Macnabb

collection, of the great Bodhi Tree (figure 16). A pen-and-ink

version, squared up for transfer and dated 1824, is in the India Office album; it also appears in the Sketches of the New Road from Calcutta to Gyah. A descendant of the

original tree still stood on the great platform behind the temple in D’Oyly’s day,

round

which

Buddhist

images

from the site were

accumulated.

Both

tree and images

were worshipped by Hindu pilgrims to the nearby sacred town of Gaya. The massive

tree is encircled by rings of stone attempting to keep its roots within bounds, while the rear wall of the temple

looms

up on the left of D’Oyly's

picture.

This picture

represents the culmination of D'Oyly’s fascination with the mysterious sacred trees of India, and here he seems to be passing beyond the merely topographical and trying to enter into the heart of Indian belief.

OIL

PAINTINGS

OF

DACCA

The bb paintings may safely be dated about 1825 and represent the first fruits of D’Oyly’s maturity as a painter in oils. Two splendid views of buildings in Dacca

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

102

(figures 17 and 18), more masterful than any paintings hitherto considered, have been variously dated to about

1812, at the end

of the artist's Dacca

period,

year he exhibited a painting of Dacca at the Royal Academy.

and

1815, the

Both of these subjects

were engraved for The Antiquities of Dacca in 1823 and 1825, but based on drawings

and with significant differences. The Great Kuttra is presented equally nobly in both media; the mosque, however, while considerably overgrown in the engraving, is practically

submerged

by the

jungle

in the painting.

Both

paintings

display

more

complex foregrounds, enlivened by groups of travellers on horses and elephants, and lending scale to the buildings, especially to the stupendous walls of the Great Kuttra. In the mosque

scene,

the brightly coloured

party wends

its way

past the mosque,

only to be swallowed up by the jungle beyond — a metaphor, perhaps, for the British in India?

The use of the oblique lines of buildings in order to knit foreground and background was new at this time in D’Oyly's work in oils. The sense of absolute rightness of their composition suggests that D'Oyly had reached a new plateau of achievement

with these works

and they cannot

predate

the Macnabb

pictures

just

considered. Yet, D'Oyly so often needed “crutches”, for example, three views of Benares, similarly oblique in composition to the Dacca views, were based on sketches by G. F. White (figures 22-24). It would seem at least possible that these Dacca compositions were based on another person's ideas, in this case those of George

Chinnery, whose views of Dacca D’Oyly had long since copied, while the dark mysterious tonalities of the Landseer engravings (figures 19 and 20), based on his own pencil drawings, would also have impressed him. Another splendid view of Dacca has also recently come to light (figure 21) showing the ruined Mughal bridge

known as the Paugla Pool. This was another subject with which D’Oyly was obsessed

in all media and, although this is somewhat different from either of the two views of

the bridge engraved by Landseer, the composition and tonalities of this painting match the two other Dacca views just discussed. Hence it may be attributed to the same period. OIL

PAINTINGS

OF

BENARES

A painting of Benares signed and dated 1839 is the key to understanding D’Oyly’s late style in oil painting,

as yet represented

massive

which

by just three

known

pictures.

Larger than

anything yet considered, it is an oblique view of the Rajmandal Ghat at Benares with walls, above

crowd

temples

and

other structures;

the river recedes

abruptly on the left and the whole subject is lit by a harsh and dramatic light (figure 22). The same oblique viewpoint and lighting are found in two unsigned oil paintings

of Benares, one of the Lalita Ghat also from downriver (figure 23), and the other of the Chowsathi Ghat taken from the Pandey Ghat upstream (figure 24); both are

clearly from the same hand as the view of Rajmandal Ghat There do not appear to be any original drawings by D'Oyly of Benares, although there are copies by him after William Prinsep. The sudden concentration on this subject at the end of his Indian career is rather curious. In considering the Dacca oil paintings, the oblique viewpoint indicates the hand of Chinnery in the original composition. Likewise with the Benares views, although here it is certainty rather than suspicion. All three subjects are based on the work of George Francis White. In one

of the White albums, there are three consecutive pencil drawings on tracing paper of these Benares views; the compositions are the same in all essentials but the drawings are clearer in detail. It must be presumed that White and D’Oyly had sufficient contact

103,

22, The Rajm:indal Ghat, Benares, Charles D’Oyly, 1839, Oil on canvas, 69 x 84 centimetres, Private collection.

23. The Lalita Ghat, Benares. Charles D'Oyly, circa 1840, Oil on canvas, 48 x 75 centimetres. By courtesy Of the Board of Trustees of the ‘Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

104

SIR CHARLES D'OYLY

SIR CHARLES DOYLY

105

25. The Chowsathi Ghat, Benares. George Francis White, 1835-40. Pencil, 28 x 43 centimetres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (OIOC), The British Library, London. with one

another

in India

exchanged drawings.

for them

to have

seen

each

other's

work

and

indeed

The dramatic perspective needed for the oil versions taxed D'Oyly’s powers up

to, and indeed beyond, his limits. He had problems in all three paintings in together foreground and background. D’Oyly had only faced the problems of architectural perspective in his Calcutta work, having avoided them hitherto by concentrating on ruined or semi-ruined buildings covered with vegetation. The difficulty is particularly obvious in the view of the Chowsathi Ghat, where the steps in the

foreground seem to be sloping upwards as they recede. Here D’Oyly’s dependence ‘on White's drawing is clear, for White has the same problem (figure 25). D’Oyly has also introduced into all three paintings a harsh and dramatic lighting and abandoned

the golden, Claude-like light of his Patna period. In this he may have been influenced

by developments in European art of the time.

It is normally difficult to sum up the work of amateur artists for they rarely had

grand theories or techniques to propagate. Yet, D’Oyly is different. His is an individual voice, albeit of limited range, which speaks to one directly through his subject matter

and the way he handled it. This perhaps explains why, despite his obvious technical limitations, he is still worth studying. D’Oyly’s concentration on Eastern India was a

sel

tion. D’Oyly, like Chinnery, embodied the new romantic mood in

art, attracted to the decayed

and

ruinous grand

buildings or to picturesque

urban

clutter. How much more picturesque and romantic if the decaying buildings of India could also be clothed in the luxurious foliage of a riotous jungle. In his most

SIR CHARLES DOYLY

106

ambitious works, although D’Oyly included grand buildings, they impress the viewer not through

their architectural beauty,

but through

their mysterious gloom.

Nor for

him the pompous buildings of imperial Calcutta, unless India had claimed them for its own.

Whatever the medium, D’Oyly’s precise draughtsmanship aimed to present what

he saw; he is an artist firmly grounded in the topographical school of the eighteenth

century. He was a romantic artist in the sense that he presented India to his British

contemporaries in a romantic guise, but the romance lies in its increasing mystery, not in the Arabian Nights’ fantasies of the “Orientalist” genre of the 1820s and 1830s. It is

none the less true that the romantic idea of picturesque decay, so ideally suited to

Eastern

India,

happened

to coincide

with

increasing

British

disenchantment

with

Indian tradition and a desire to sweep it all away in the interests of utilitarian modernism.

In this sense,

it is true that D’Oyly

is a “colonial” artist, whose sub-text is

the decay of the Indian body-politic as instanced by its material remains. Yet, D'Oyly

himself cannot be charged with this view — he painted what he saw within the limits

of his technical abilities, and his creations give no sense of being romanticized for any

reason other than artistic. For forty years, D’Oyly lived continuously in India and his work exudes a love of that country rivalled by few other artists.

BIBLIOGRAPHY DOyly, Sir Charles. Antiquities of Dacca. London: J. Landseer, 1814-27 —. Tom Raw, the Griffin: a Burlesque Poem, London, 1828. — . Sketches of the New Road in a Journey from Calcutta to Gyab. Calcutta: Asiatic Lithographic Press. 1830. — . Views of Calcutta and its Environs. London: Dickinson & Co., 1848. Heber, Reginald. Narrative of a Voyage through the Upper Provinces of India. London, 1828. Losty, J. P. "Sir Charles D‘Oyly’s Lithographic Press and his Indian Assistants” in India: A Pageant of Prints, Eds, P. Rohatgi and P. Godrej, Bombay: Marg Publications, 1989, pp. 135-60. —. “The Calcutta of Charles D‘Oyly”, in Changing Visions, Lasting Images: Calcutta through 300 Years. Ed. P. Pal Bombay: Marg Publications, 1990, pp. 47-58. —.*A Princess's Memento: Charlotte D’Oyly’s Gift to the Duchess of Gloucester”, South Asian Studies, 7, 1991, pp. 75-82 Shellim, Maurice. Oi! Paintings by Sir Charles D'Oyly, 71h Baronet, 1781-1845. London, 1989 Sotheby & Co. British Paintings 1500-1850, 18th November, 1992, Unpublished literature Correspondence of Warren Hastings, 1795-1818. The British Library Add, MSS 29174-92, Letters of Charles D’Oyly to Edward Strachey. The British Library, India Office Collections, Sutton Court Papers, MSS_Eur F 128/162 Memoirs of William Prinvep. The British Library, India Office Collections, MSS Eur D- 1170. Inventories of the contents of James Munro Macnabb's house, 1840 and 150. The British Library India Office Collections, Macnab Papers, MSS Eur F 206/77 and 78) Proceedings of the Behar School of Athens, Vol. Published at the Academy's Literary Press, Patna, from 1824 to {gap] by D'Oyly Smyth Beauchamp & Co. Private collection. See Maggs Bros. Lid. Septuaginta: 70 Rare Books and Manuscripts in a Variety of Fields. London, September 1984. 00. 54 FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. Portrait of Sir Charles D'Oyly by George Chinnery, courtesy India Office Library and Records (O1OC), The British Library, London,

107

FROM JAMES

BAILLIE

WATERCOLOUR FRASER

AND

TOBY

HIS

TO VIEWS

PRINT OF

CALCUTTA

FALK

Instead of now attempting to make

strange and unnatural things under

the name of landscape, I endeavor to avail myself of what passes before me, and imitate the beauty that I see

abroad and the tints that are so

delightful in nature. What the enjoyment is that this gives me none

can know but myself. James Baillie Fraser's diary, January

6,

1819

The subject of this essay has been prompted by the recent identification of a hitherto undiscovered series of watercolours of Calcutta by James Baillie Fraser (1783-1856). For many years, Fraser has been celebrated as the original artist of two of the finest sets of aquatints of Indian scenery — mountainscapes of the Himalayas and urbanscapes of Calcutta, These represent two completely different visions of landscape art: the first, the sublimely picturesque with its awe-inspiring revelations of mountain scenery and the second, topographical impressions of a city teeming with vitality. Fraser's original pictures prepared for the engravings were thought to have been lost and it was therefore a moment of great excitement when his watercolours for the Calcutta prints were recently discovered. During the 1980s Mildred Archer and this writer were given access to papers relating to the lives of James Baillie Fraser and his brother William. This culminated in the publication of a book which reproduces these two great series of aquatints, his Views in the Himala Mountains published with twenty plates in 1820, and Views of Calcutta, and its Environs published with twenty-four plates between 1824 and 1826.' James's styles of drawing and watercolour were then known only from a few surviving works and from sketches he subsequently made in Persia, while precious little of his work in India could be identified? In spite of references by him to various versions of Indian views which he had made, very few of these seemed to have survived and, more particularly, not a single drawing or watercolour made of the aquatint scenes could be found. The volume of Fraser's original watercolours of Calcutta was recognized

JAMES BAILLIE FRASER AND HIS VIEWS OF CALCUTTA

108

in the library at Longleat

House

in Wiltshire,

and

it contains twenty-four

its Environs.

bound

in nineteenth-century

finished

pictures, comprising the full series of scenes as published in his Views of Calcutta, and This

album,

half-morocco

with

marbled

boards, was acquired by Beriah Botfield (1807-63) during the lifetime of James Baillie Fraser. Botfield’s collection of books was subsequently bequeathed to the Thynne

family in the middle of this century, since when it has been incorporated with the

library at Longleat House.’

THE FRASER FAMILY

Many a first-born son has devoted his strengths to the family, but James Baillie Fraser in so doing experienced a most adventurous and colourful life. As the eldest of five brothers he took on family responsibilities at an early age. Although expected to do

well at business and trade, on which he expended much of the energy of his youth, his real talent lay in painting. Though often regarded as an amateur artist, he managed, through single-minded industry, to make a living from his paintings for some years.

James's father, Edward Satchwell Fraser, owned an estate in Scotland, far from

the northem counties of England where wealth was accruing from the activities of the

early Industrial Revolution. In contrast to the improved lot of the rapidly rising English middle ses, the Scottish gentry found standards of living hard to maintain during the second half of the eighteenth century. Farming and rents paid poor returns, yet

there was little else to turn to for emolument. Edward Fraser, in an effort to improve

his lot and pay off accumulating debts, had invested in a sugarcane plantation in the

West Indies. James voyaged there in 1799 for his first assignment, to oversee production and safeguard the family investment. While in the West Indies, he drew a few pictures of the locality to send home to the family, but these would have been of a standard

no better than drawings done by any other educated gentleman of the day. Meanwhile,

the sugar market remained fickle, so much so that no intensity of management could tum in the hoped for profits. In 1811 James returned home to Scotland. By then three of his younger brothers, William, Alexander, and committed to careers in India.* Of these it was William with whom

come into contact the most. By the time of James's

Edward, were James was to

arrival in Calcutta in’ 1814, William

had finished his training and studies there, and had been posted to Delhi.

Initially, James worked hard at his desk, taking care of the import and export

business with which his partnership was concemed. By 1814, however, partly because

of the personality clash with his partner, he gave up the tedious struggle of trying to make a profit and took leave to travel up-country to Delhi. There, William had been

taking an active part in the political and military developments of the Nepal War. By the

time James

reached

Delhi,

William

had

left

for the

battle

front,

far up

in the

Himalayan foothills. James eagerly followed, catching up with William at Nahan in

March of 1815. After the emotional excitement of meeting William whom he had not seen for the past sixteen years, his attention turned to the observation of all around him. He found himself close to the front line of battle with no official role, yet

privileged as a civilian observer. Here he was, in a distant and exotic location, with history being made before his eyes. His response was to record what he saw in

drawings

This would have been a natural response for an educated Englishman in

pre-photography days, but James took to it with extraordinary enthusiasm. He described how

when

home, he he wrote:

“the Devil of Drawing

broke

loose

there was

no

holding

him”,

in letters

expressed his frustration at his poor efforts, as in a letter to his sister, when

“It was then

that I regretted

the inattention

I paid at school

and wished

for

109

1. Crossing the Touse. Aquatint by Robert avell senior and his son, Rober, after a watercolour by James Baillie Fraser, 42 x 60 centimetres Published as no. 10 in Fraser's Views in the Himala Mountains (London, 1820), Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London. 2. View of Court House Street, from near the South Eastern Gate of Government House, Calcutta James Baillie Fraser, circa 1819. Watercolour, 28 x 43 centimetres, Published as aquatint no. 14 of his Views of Calcutta, and its Environs (London, 1824-26), Reproduced by kind permission of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House, Warminster, Great Britain.

M1

3. A View of Calcutta from a Point opposite to Kidderpore. James Baillie Fraser, circa 1819. Watercolour, 28 x 43 centimetres, Published as aquatint no. 20 of his Views of Calcutta, and its Environs (London, 1824-26). Reproduced by kind permission of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House, Warminster, Great Britain

112

4. View of Calcutta from the Glacis of Fort William. James Baillie Fraser, circa 1819, Watercolour, 28 x 43 centimetres. Published as aquatint no. 15 of his Views of Calcutta, and its Environs (London, 1824-26). Reproduced by kind permission of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House, Warminster, Great Britain, some master to give me only a few hints.”* Still, he did not let his inexperience hinder

him. Nor, with the skirmishes of war carrying on near his camp and the spectacular Himalayan scenery, was he short of exciting subjects to draw. THE It was James's

unforgettable

HIMALAYAN

experiences

in the

VIEWS hills and

his enthusiastic

efforts

at

depicting that distant area which led to his ambition to publish his pictures, and perhaps thereby help the family finances. Back in Calcutta in 1816, he launched into

the lengthy task of perfecting his drawings and tidying up his notes on the hills in

preparation for publication. By January 1818, he was

sufficiently satisfied with his

drawings of the Himalayas to have them shipped home to his father who could oversee their publication. They were published in 1820, at which time James was still travelling home by an adventurous route through Persia. The aquatints were prepared and worked on by the professional engraver, Robert Havell, for the publishers Rodwell and Martin (figure 1, also see figures 4, 5, and 6 on pages

126 and

129).

Since

James's original watercolour drawings for the series have not been found, there is no

way of checking the faithfulness of the Himalayan aquatints with his originals. In view of the fact that he was unable to oversee their production, it is quite possible that

Robert Havell made improvements in the aquatints. In one of his letters about the shipment of the journal and drawings, James said: “I now send them, tho’ very

113,

5, View of Court House Street, from near the South Easter Gate of Government House. Aquatint by Theodore HA. Ficlding, after the watercolour by James Baillie Fraser, 28 x 43 centimetres, Published as no. Li of risers Views of Caleutta, and its Environs (London, 1824-26). Collection of Roy and Pauline Rohatgi 6. A View of Calcutta from a Point opposite to Kidderpore. Aquatint by Robert Havell junior, after the watercolour by James Baillie Fraser, 28 x 43 centimetres, Published as no. 20 of Friser’s Views of Calcutta, and its Environs (London, 1824-26) Collection of Roy and Pauline Robat

JAMES BAILLIE FRASER AND HIS VIEWS OF CALCUTTA

7. View tutta from the Glacis of Fort William Proof print engraved and si ned by Theodore H. A. Fielding, inscribed with his manuscrip notes of instruction to Fielding, 28x 43 centimet Envi Published as aquatint no. 1 f Fraser's Views of Calcutta, and tts

py Jame

Baillie Fraser and.

115

ned by Theodore H. A. Fielding with James Baillie

JAMES BAILLIE FRASER AND HIS VIEWS OF CALCUTTA

116

imperfect, to my father... . I have requested them to revise, cut and carve, and

what they like with it’,6 a comment

do

which, though perhaps referring more to the

written journal than to the drawings, nevertheless expresses a wish to have something

published however the publisher deemed fit VIEWS

Not long after his completion

OF

CALCUTTA

of the Himalayan

series it occurred

to James

that it

might also be profitable to prepare a series on Calcutta itself. True, various views of

Calcutta had already been produced for the British market, notably the series by Thomas and William Daniell between 1786 and 1788, but these were not as attractive or up-to-date as those James was planning. By the time he resolved to attempt this

project, he already knew that his ultimate intention was to leave Calcutta and try his fortune elsewhere. It is ironic that, at a time when he had become disenchanted with

life in Calcutta, he was working on executing some of the most beautiful scenes of the city. His disenchantment must have stemmed primarily from his tarnished attitude to his work and the boring duties he felt obliged to undertake. By contrast, the

buildings and atmosphere of the city itself were inspiring James in his new-found

artistic occupation. The hours of the day that he enjoyed most were those when

he

could work at his pictures or meet with painter friends. He joined the fraternity of

professional and amateur artists who frequented Calcutta: Robert Smith, Cornelius

Smith, Colonel Jasper Nicholls, and the Prinseps, from any of whom James was eager to elicit praise for his own drawings. During his preparation of the Himalayan drawings, he above all valued the companionship and instruction he received from the professional artist, William Havell, nephew of the engraver, Robert Havell senior,

who

with

his son, also named

Robert,

was

later to work

on James's

aquatints

in

London. William Havell was only in Calcutta for a period between 1817 and January

of 1819 while returning from China, where he had accompanied Lord Amherst's embassy.

Yet, James

held him

in high esteem,

both as a friend

and

as an artistic

preceptor. As acknowledged by James himself, it is to William Havell that much credit must

be given

for the successful

progress

made

between James's

drawings and the completed pictures of the Himalayan series

initially amateur

CHINNERY’S INFLUENCE Dominating the amateur artistic fraternity of Calcutta was George Chinnery (1774-1852),

brilliant but irascible, from whom aspiring painters could learn and receive criticism.

After Havell’s return to England, James took frequent lessons from Chinnery. They struck up a relationship which, while artistically productive, was at best capricious and sometimes stormy, as on July 7, 1819:

“The evening of this day spent at Chinneries

pleasantly, enough, but there is always a fear of his temper flying out — & his poor

daughter

is the first that suffers

tho it discomposes

the whole

company.”

And

on

Saturday, July 10: “In the evening I went to shew [sic] the weeks work to Chinnery, he

abused me about a sky which I thought was really good — he did not & I am to alter

much of it tomorrow.” Having altered it, by changing the yellow and red into a

green-grey fading into yellow, he showed it again to Chinnery who As

William

Havell

had

been

influential

for the

Himalayan

series,

delighted”?

so Chinnery

as for the Calcutta series. Whereas James must have selected the particular views of

Calcutta he wished to depict, it is clear that Chinnery had a strong say in some of the

117

10. A Horse-clrawn Carriage Watere by an Indian artist acquired in India by James Baillie Fraser, 14.5 x 20.5 centimetres. Priv 1A Horse-drawn Carriage Detail of James Baillie Fraser's aquatint no, 2 of his Views of Calcutta, and its Environs, which is lettered: A View of Esplanade Row from the Chouringee Road.

JAMES BAILLIE FRASER AND HIS VIEWS OF CALCUTTA,

118

precise locations from which his idea of a picturesque scene might be drawn In early ‘August, James was working on his view of the Botanic Garden House and Reach (to become aquatint no. 4), and on August 2, he “prepared for sketching with Chinnery

from the second site intended for the view, then attended my usual duties till 5 when

I drove him down to Garden Reach, & then found all my plans of the moming quite

exploded, he fixed another spot, different from all those previously thought of on the left of the front of the house under a large tree where I hope to make a good picture.”* With such decisions to be taken and work to be done on the drawings, the

months before leaving Calcutta must have been extremely busy for James. In addition to saying farewell to his various friends, he had his business affairs in Calcutta to wind up and parcels of possessions to be sent home to Scotland. The drawings took most

of his

time.

Yet

all twenty-four

views

finished watercolours by May of 1820. THE

LONGLEAT

were

settled

upon

and

worked

into

WATERCOLOURS

The watercolours in the Longleat Album are a revelation in that they contain all the qualities and sensitivities of the aquatints, and more (figures 2-4). What is known of the production of the Himalayan series leaves room for suspicion that James's amateur

watercolours

had

been

transformed

for

publication

by

the

inveterate

skill of the

engravers, Robert Havell senior, his son Robert, and others including Theodore H. A.

Fielding. Hence there was no reason to discount the possibility of a similar process of

professional improvement in the case of the Calcutta series. Yet, from these watercolours

no hint of any improvement can be detected. The atmosphere of the clear Calcutta skies is there, the light on the buildings, and the reflections of the ships in the water.

Indeed, numerous minor details have been overlooked in the aquatints (figures 5 and

6), or have been excluded at the edge of the picture (such as a boat at the extreme left of figure 4). Whether these are the actual watercolours used for the making of the

aquatints, or another set which James worked up concurrently, will probably never be

known. Yet, they tell a great deal about his skills as a watercolourist and the full contribution he made to the finished aquatints. For the fact that the Calcutta aquatints

are more cohesively composed and polished than those of the Himalayas, some credit

must go to Chinnery — but James had proved himself to be a hard-working and talented pupil, and his labours paid off in the final published result. The Calcutta series was prepared from James's watercolours with his personal

direction and comments, and a demanding artist he was. It is fortunate in that a proof. print of one of the Calcutta views, the “View of Calcutta from the Glacis of Fort

William” still survives (figures 4 and 7-9). The engraver was Fielding. It is of particular interest because around the edge of this proof, James has written pencilled comments which

reveal an insistent demand

that the aquatint come

as close as possible to the

drawing. “The masts of these vessels in the engraving are harsh strokes merely, they ought to be made more nearly to resemble sticks or timber like those in the Drawing,” Beneath the same corner he wrote:

“All the vessels ill drawn, stiff and not at all like

the Drawing”, and beneath the figures: “The figures are worse by a great deal than in the original, want distinctness, Drawing’several of the limbs are awkward & poor.” and beneath

instead of From influenced purposes

the cattle:

“The cattle like the figures

improving on the drawing they James's letters and diaries one by the drawings of Indian artists. in collecting pictures by Indian

want

more

masterly

touches

—

are inferior. is led to believe that his. pictures were He wrote more than once that one of his artists was to provide him with working

JAMES BAILLIE FRASER AND HIS VIEWS OF CALCUTTA

12. A View of Government House from the Eastward, Aquatint by Robert Havell junior, after the watercolour by James Baillie Fraser, 28 x 43 centimetres. Published as no. 3 of Fraser's Views of Calcutta, and its Environs (London, 1824-26), Collection of Roy and Pauline Rohatgi

material and ideas for his own pictures.’ “How valuable are these to me, as studies of

costume, from which, to fill in figures in drawings”, he wrote to his father on November 20, 1819." Whereas the costumes of the numerous figures of the Company School drawings may have been of help to James, it has not yet been possible to

correlate a single figure in his aquatints with its counterpart in a Company picture. Among the Company pictures purchased (as opposed to commissioned) by James in

India is a watercolour of an Indian carriage of European style, the type built in India to be owned and used by local operators (figure 10). A very similar carriage, perhaps inspired by this very drawing, is seen in James's scene of Esplanade Row (figure 11).”

The isolation of this incidental instance of a pictorial relationship suggests that James

used the Indian drawings more for reference than for direct borrowing. Even in the case of the finest of the Company School figure drawings which he collected, James never made mention of the name of the Indian artist employed. His attitude, normal

for that time, would have been that these accurate renditions were valuable for their

precision and truthful recording rather than for any artistic merit. Works by Indian

artists, not inspired by any striving for the picturesque or sublime, would have been

inappropriate as an artistic or inspirational source for his own watercolours.

For many years, James Baillie Fraser’s views of Calcutta held their position as a

primary source for those in England who wished to know about the city and its appearance (figure 12). A map of Calcutta, published by Chapman and Hall in 1842 under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,

119

JAMES BAILLIE FRASER AND HIS VIEWS OF CALCUTTA

120

bears three engraved vignettes of the city. One, titled “Esplanade Row”, is an undisguised

adaptation of James's view from the Glacis (figures 4 and 7), missing the cows but

with the same palanquin and attendants, the distant shipping somewhat enlarged. In

a view of Writers’ Buildings, James’s bullock-cart and water-carrier from his aquatint of the same subject are clearly recognizable. Doubtless, many other such instances of direct use of the Views of Calcutta, and its Environs can be found, for until the advent

of photography and the extensive developments that engulfed the former beauty of

the city, such aquatints were a source of reference as well as pleasure for many

people.

NOTES 1. The Fraser Papers have been fully listed by the National Register of Archives, Scotland. The book by M. Archer and T. Falk, India Revealed: The Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35 (London, 1989) and this article, are both substantially based on information from the Fraser Papers. 2. Archer and Falk, op. cit, figure 14. Two volumes containing pencil sketches, made by James Baillie Fraser during his travels in Persia, 1821-23, are among the Fraser Papers. 3. The twenty-four watercolours in the album are of a size that matches the aquatint series (28 x 43 centimetres) and are mounted on the pages of the album, with abbreviated captions writen on the reverse of each page in a nineteenth-century hand. 4. An account of various aspects of the lives of the Fraser brothers in India is given in William Dalrymple, City of Dyinns, London, 1993, 5. Letters from James to his sister Jane Anne: Fraser Papers B 2 and B 3, 6. James Fraser to Gladstone: Letterbook, Fraser Papers, vol. 58, p. 12 7. James Fraser's diary for 1819: Fraser Papers B 296. 8. James Fraser's diary for Monday, August 2, 1819: ibid., B 296. 9. For an account of the Company drawings collected by James and William Fraser see Archer and Falk, op. cit. chapter 4 10, Fraser Papers, vol. 23, p. 139. 11. For the complete aquatint see Archer and Falk. op. cit, figure 37. BIBLIOGRAPHY Archer, M. and T. Falk. India Revealed: The Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35. London, 1989, Dalrymple, W. City of Dyinns. London, 1993. Losty, J.P. Calcutta, City of Palaces, A Survey of the City in the Days of the East India Company, 1690-1858, London: The British Library, 1990. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, My sincere thanks are due to those who have in various ways been of assistance in the preparation of this article: Malcolm and Kathy Fraser, Kate Harris, Richard Kossow, Felix de Marez Oyens, and Pauline Rohatgi. Portrait of James Baillie Fraser by Sir Henry Raeburn (after an old photograph) courtesy Malcolm and Kathy Fraser.

121

NATURE’S MOUNTAINSCAPES

TALL BY

SENTINELS

BRITISH

PHEROZA

ARTISTS

IN

INDIA

GODREJ

The wild and rugged peaks almost met each other on either side,

covered with finely varied foliage; and the stream sunk into a bed

just sufficient to contain it, where,

occasionally seen, but always

beard, it tumbled over rocks and falls concealed by thickets of roses, jasmines,

barberries,

odoriferous shrubs.

willows, and many other lovely or

J. B. Fraser’s Journal,

1815

For centuries, artists and poets of many nationalities have been inspired by the mountain regions of the world. To some of them these regions were symbols of the life-giving source, the beginnings of the great rivers which have influenced human activities and shaped the course of civilizations and empires. In India, these sources

have become sacred sites visited by pilgrims making long, arduous journeys in search

of religious fulfilment.

Hindus

have

always

revered

the Himalayas,

which

represent the abode of the gods. In the words of the Skanda Purana,

to them

“. as the sun

dries the morning dew, so are the sins of man dissipated at the site of the Himalayas”. British artists such as the Daniells and James Baillie Fraser, who ventured to the Himalayan regions, were captivated by the sheer monumental splendour and sublimity of the landscape. Hill stations were established by the British in the more accessible

mountainous areas, for example, in the Nilgiris, at Simla, and Matheran. This was

largely so that they could escape the summer heat of the plains and, as a result, these

areas became popular subjects for pictures. This article endeavours to convey, through the eyes of seven

British landscape

artists, the majesty and picturesque qualities of

some of the mountain regions within the Indian subcontinent.

122

1. The Rope Bridge at Srinagar, Garhwal, ‘Thomas Daniell, circa 1800 Oil on canvas, 81.9 x 113.5 centimetres Courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon ¢

123

MOUNTAINSCAPES BY BRITISH ARTISTS IN INDIA

124

THOMAS

DANIELL

(1749-1840)

AND

WILLIAM

DANIELL

(1769-1837)

‘The Daniells were the first professional landscape artists in India to visit the Himalayan foothills, opening up landscape vistas hitherto unknown to Europeans. In April 1789, Thomas and William Daniell reached the northemmost spot on their tour of North India, the town of Srinagar in Garhwal. They had travelled from Delhi via Anupshahr

and Najibabad. As they approached their destination, William wrote enthusiastically in his diary: “From Natan [Naithana] ascended a very high mountain, from which We had a glorious view of the Snowy ones or rather regions. The height of them far exceeded our expectations — they disappeared soon after the Sun had risen.” Although they spent only a very short time in the Srinagar area, its dramatic source of inspiration to them for many years.

The celebrated view, “The Rope Bridge,

scenery was a

Srinagar”, painted about 1800 by Thomas

Daniell (figure 1), is probably the same picture that he exhibited at the Royal ‘Academy that year. It was described in the exhibition catalogue as “The Rope Bridge

at Serinagur, in the Sevalic mountains, taken in the year 1789 during the evacuation of

the city in consequence of the approach of a large army from Almorah, East Indies.” Against the grey-green mountain background, people are seen walking across the rope bridge over the Alaknanda river. A ruined fort sits atop the summit of a rocky promontory in the foreground. Similar versions to figure 1 in oils by Thomas Daniell are in the India Office Library and Records, painted in 1808, and in the Victoria

Memorial Hall, Calcutta. The latter, purchased through Lord Curzon in 1923, was

probably painted by Thomas in 1790-91 during their stay at Bhagalpur, and was subsequently in the Madras Lottery in February 1793. Another version of the subject is in the Daniells’ Oriental Scenery. Drawn and

engraved by both Thomas and William, it is closest in composition to figure 1. The

most obvious differences are the distribution of the figures crossing the rope bridge

and the light in the picture. The scene in the oil seems bathed in the slanting rays of the sun, while the print depicts a view during the day. The accompanying text to the

print noted: “The city of Serinagur appears in the distance, extending along the right bank of the Alucnindra, and is partly concealed by the high rock in the front of the

view.” Thomas also described his experiences on arrival: “On the author's approach

to this place, he was greeted by many young people, who presented him with flowers

and preceded his party on their way to the town, singing and showing other signs of an hospitable welcome. On entering the city, he found the disposition of the Rajah

himself no less friendly, but unfortunately he was then preparing to quit his capital, and leave it to the mercy of another Rajah, who, in his superior power, had discovered an unanswerable argument for invading the territories of his neighbours. The river is seen here too rapid to be past even by boats, and therefore the bridge of ropes

represented in this plate, offered the only means for the Rajah and his people to effect their retreat..... This bridge, which is 240 feet in length, is an engineer's

ingenious contrivance, and so simple that it may be soon erected and soon removed... . On top of the rock near the bridge, are the remains of a building

formerly inhabited by a faquier who is a kind of Indian hermit.” Despite their brief visit to the region, for the local dissensions meant that they had to leave Srinagar after

only three days and return to the plains, it was obviously a most memorable experience

Yet, their harmonious pictures of Srinagar bathed in an ethereal light betray no hint of the political troubles in the valley point

It was more than three years later that the Daniells reached the southernmost of their South Indian tour in August 1792. Just before doing so, they had

travelled through the Tinnevelly district Gvhich was not accufately surveyed until

2. Cape Comorin, taken near Calead. Thomas and William Daniell, 1804 Coloured aquatint, 46 x 60 centimetres Courtesy Farooq Issa, Phillips Antiques, Bombay 3. View of Shivagiri from the Top of Ramgiri, Mysore. Robert Home, 1792 Pencil and sepia wash, 37 x 53.5 centimetres srtesy India Office Library and Records (OIOC), The British Library, London.

&‘e

MOUNTAINSCAPES BY BRITISH ARTISTS IN INDIA

127

1807), and as they left the plains of the Deccan and entered the hilly and rougher

country of the southern forests, the scenery grew increasingly grand. Their print, “Cape Comorin, taken near Calcad [Kalakad]”, of the noble peak of Mahendra Giri

picturesquely wreathed in clouds, was one result of their visit. It was published in Oriental Scenery in 1804 (figure 2). In its accompanying text the Daniells wrote: “To

the southern most point of the peninsula of India has been given the name of Cape

Comorin, and this appellation navigators have transferred to the lofty mountain

situated not far distant from its extremity, which is a well known and conspicuous landmark to those who navigate the eastern coast of the peninsula.” This print is one of the most inspired compositions in Oriental Scenery, boldly evocative with its cloud

formations swirling round the mountain peak and the reflection of the gopuram in the

water. Its picturesque features are enhanced further by the palm trees, ruins, and group of people and animals in the foreground. Thomas and William Daniell continued

to paint Indian scenes for many

years after their return to London

in 1794, and

in

1804 Thomas exhibited a painting titled “Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of

the peninsular of India”, at the Royal Academy in London. It was largely through their paintings and especially the published prints of Oriental Scenery that the landscape and architectural monuments of India became

ROBERT

HOME

so familiar to Europeans at that time.

(1752-1834)

Shortly before the Daniells reached Mysore, Robert Home was travelling through the region.

Like them he was by nature adventurous. His artistic career in India largely as

a professional portrait painter, however, was very different. He arrived in Madras in 1790 and was to remain in India for the rest of his life. Soon after his arrival, he was

fortunate to join Lord Cornwallis's army as official artist in 1791-92, shortly before

Treaty of Seringapatam, which ended the Third Mysore War.

the

He made a large number of drawings of Mysore with its curious rock formations, and of the people associated with the campaigns. His landscapes included “View of

Shivagiri from the top of Ramgiri, Mysore”, drawn in 1792 (figure 3). This comes from a large album of similar pencil and sepia drawings, which was presented to the India

Office Library and Records by a descendant of the artist in 1980. In graphic detail, Home

has drawn the rocks of the foreground massed together on the hillside which

cuts the composition diagonally. Shivagiri is shown on the distant plain. Home has captured the quality of sunlight in the scene by adding monochrome

washes to the

pencil outlines. This drawing, along with several others from the album, was engraved

and published in Home's Select Views in Mysore, the Country of Tippoo Sultan (London,

1794). He also described the view: “Shevagurry is a large fortified rock, situated nearly in the centre of that extensive forest, which reaches from Shevagunga to the banks of the Cauvery.” This vivid study seems to convey something of the enthusiasm for the rugged landscape features of Mysore that Home himself perhaps felt while journeying through the spectacular countryside with its numerous hilltop forts or droogs. Many

portraits

results of Home's

and

historical

paintings,

besides

landscapes,

were

the

fruitful

appointment to the army of Cornwallis. He moved subsequently to

Calcutta where he developed a flourishing practice as a portrait painter, and later to Lucknow where he amassed a fortune as chief painter to the King of Oudh. In 1802, he was Secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Although he never returned to

Englind, he continued to exhibit Indian subjects at the Royal Academy. He was,

however,

one of the first artists Gabout

a year

before the Daniells reached

make almost geological studies of the locality’s tock formations.

Mysore)

to.

MOUNTAINSCAPES BY BRITISH ARTISTS IN INDIA

128

JAMES

BAILLIE

FRASER

(1783-1856)

With the publication of one set of twenty views of the Himalayas in 1820, James Baillie Fraser, an amateur artist, became the most celebrated of all those who portrayed

these mountains. As pointed out by Toby Falk in this volume, none of Fraser's

original sketches or paintings for this set is known, although his drawings for the views were exhibited by the publishers at that time in London, in order to attract

subscribers to the project. The coloured aquatint engravings made from them by

Robert Havell and his son rank among the finest prints of mountain scenery ever produced. It was some twenty-five years after the Daniells’ visit to the Himalayan foothills of Garhwal, that Fraser had the opportunity to explore the region to the

north-west of Srinagar. With his brother, William, who was taking part in the Nepal

War of 1814-15, he travelled through the Jubal and Bashahr districts towards the Sutlej river. After that, apart from a small escort, he journeyed alone since William had received orders to proceed to Srinagar (Garhwal). James followed the riverbeds of the

Jumna and the Ganges to their respective sources at Jumnotri and Gungotri, becoming the first European

to explore these regions.

The tour resulted not only in Views in the Himala Mountains but also his Journal

of a Tour through

Part of the Snowy Range

of the Himala

Mountains

and to the

Sources of the Rivers Jumna and Ganges, which gives the background to the views. It is also remarkable for its almost poetic descriptions of the region, for he was obviously

a keen observer and a naturalist. Both works were published by Messrs Rodwell and

Martin in London in 1820.

One exquisitely engraved and picturesque landscape

depicts Jumnotri. The snow-capped

peaks in the background

release the streams of

the Jumna, which cascade over and wind through the mountain gorges and ravines to the place where Fraser had obviously stood to make his sketch (figure 4). The two

figures seated on the rock in the foreground admiring the scenery are dwarfed by the

majesty

of the forests and

the mountains.

He

also wrote

in his journal:

“The spot

which obtains the name of Jumnotree is, in fact, very little below the place where the various small streams formed on the mountain brow, by the melting of many masses

of snow, unite in one, and fall into a basin below...

. Between the two banks the view

is closed by the breast of the mountain, which is of vivid green from perpetual

moisture, and is furrowed by time and the torrents into numberless ravines; and down these ravines are seen trickling the numerous sources of this branch of the Jumna.

Above this green bank, rugged, bare, and dark, rocky cliffs arise, and the deep calm

beds and cliffs of snow, towering above all, finish the picture. Noble rocks of varied hues and forms, crowned

with luxuriant dark foliage,

and the stream

foaming from

rock to rock, forms a foreground not unworthy of it.” His enthusiasm for every feature of the landscape is obvious and he made numerous sketches and drawings of the

scenery and the people. The mountains with their conifers and different plants he

encountered reminded him of his home at Reilig in the Scottish Highlands. James Baillie Fraser's interest in the local hill people is especially evident in one

of the prints, “Assemblage of Hillmen”, in which-a group of men stand in a village armed

with

bows

and

shields

watched

by

women

and

children,

He

was

equall

fascinated by the style of the local architecture such as the “Temple of Magne

(figure 5), of which he wrote: “The temple was remarkably neat, quite in the Chinese style, as usual: it is sacred to the goddess

Bhowannee.

The whole of the interior is

sculptured over in wood, with infinite labour, and probably forms a detail of the exploits of the deity: she seems to have been frequently engaged with monsters of very uninviting shapes. The portion of the carving, however, which neither represents the human

nor animal

figure is by

far the most beautiful.

The

whole

roof. which

is

129

r Or) after James Baillie Fraser, published 1820. 16 X 60 centimets Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

6. Bheem ke Udar Robert Havell (senior) after James Baillie Fraser, published 1820, Coloured aquatint, 46 x 60 centimetres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10 The British Library, London

130

7. North Side of Kaitee Hill near Ootacamund. Richard Barron, 1835. Oil on canvas, 45 x 60 centimetres.

Courtesy India Office Library and Records (OIC), The British Library, London,

formed of fir wood, is richly cut into flowers and ornaments entirely in the Hindoo

taste, with a sharpness and precision, yet an ease that does honour to the mountain artist. The whole setting was most beautiful." The temple structures dominate the composition. The shape of the roof and silhouette of the stupas contrast with the

rugged mountains, enveloped in cloud in the distance. Groups of hillmen are either resting or lighting a fire near the tents in the foreground. Perhaps

the most majestically sublime

interpretation of the Himalayan

scenery

among Fraser's views is “Bheem ke Udar”, with its rocks in the foreground contrasting dramatically with the snow-capped peaks in the distance (figure 6). It was here, while

crossing the high mountain pass between the valleys of the Jumna and the Ganges, that Fraser and his party spent a

bitterly cold night on July 16, 1815 trying to shelter

from the rain in the cave. He has included a number of the hill people from his party with several around a fire inside the cave. Here, Fraser seems particularly deft in expressing human

frailty in relation to the elements and features of nature. RICHARD

BARRON

(fl.

1815-38)

The Daniells, James Baillie Fraser, and Robert Home are celebrated as landscape artists who worked in India. Little is known, however, of Richard Barron except that

he was an amateur artist and the original draughtsman of a set of six charming prints

of the Nilgiris. He served with several different regiments of the British Army in India,

finally with the 3rd (East Kent) Foot as captain. In 1834, he was appointed ADC to the Governor of Madras. His scenes of the Nilgiris centre around Ootacamund, which was

developed as a hill station by the British in the early nineteenth century.

It became

131

8. A Group of Todas at Kandelmund, Nilgiris, Robert Havell (junior) after Richard Barron, published 1837. Coloured aquatint, 39.5 x 52.2 centimetres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The Brit Library, London. 9. The Kaitee Waterfall, near Ootacamund. Robert Havell (junior) after Richard Barron, published 1837. Coloured aquatint, 39.5 x 52.2 centimetres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (OIC), The British Library, London,

132

10. The River Jhelum above Srinagar, Kashmir. George Landseer, 1860 Pastel drawing, 35.5 x 52 centimetre By courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,

11. Camp Scene in a Rocky Gorge, Kashmir, George Landseer, 1860 Pastel drawing, 51 x 71 centimetres, By courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Muscum, London.

MOUNTAINSCAPES BY BRITISH ARTISTS IN INDIA

133

known as the “Queen of Hill Stations”, while the summer headquarters of the Madras

government was nearby at Wellington. It was the son of Robert Havel (senior) also named Robert, who engraved Richard Barron's Views in India, Chiefly among the Neelgherry Hills, which were published in London

in 1837. The Havell family were

leading aquatint engravers in England and although, with the exception of William Havell, they never visited the country, they interpreted

the watercolours of both

Fraser and Barron with great sensitivity. There are likewise no known original

watercolours by Barron, but an oil painting by him has been acquired recently by the India Office Library and Records (figure 7).

side

Painted by Barron during a short visit to the Nilgiris in 1835, it depicts the “North of

Kaitee

Hill

near

Ootacamund”

including

Toda

huts

and

villagers

in

the

foreground. It is of interest as an example of his original work, but conveys none of the technical skill or picturesque atmosphere apparent in the six aquatint engravings

by Havell. By contrast these are idyllic pastoral scenes, which include views of the lake at Ootacamund,

a Toda family outside their hut (figure 8) and a vivid portrayal

of the rich vegetation in the print of “The Kaitee Waterfall” (figure 9). Barron also described the scene: “This waterfall is one of the great attractions to all persons who

visit the Hills. It is about seven or eight miles from the Cantonment, and you descend (to a thermometer

increased several degrees) in height, passing through the Farm of

Kaitee by a bridle road, fit also for a tonjon [type of sedan chair], which leads direct to it. Pic-nics of the most agreeable kind are often made to this delightful spot. The

bottom of the fall is hid by a large wood, known only perhaps to the timid elk, fierce

cheetah, or bear, which are often met with in this neighbourhood.” The majesty of the

Himalayan range contrasts with the romantic mood of the Nilgiris.

This view of the

waterfall, like the others in Barron’s set, is bathed in a golden sunlight. Like the hill men of the Himalayas in Fraser's pictures, the villagers of the Nilgiris are vividly portrayed, forming a distinct and vital part of the scene.

GEORGE

LANDSEER (1834-78)

Both Robert Home and George Landseer were professional portrait painters who

became equally Landseer arrived General and his where he made included a view

fascinated by the scenery of India, in Calcutta in 1860 and travelled wife, Lord and Lady Canning. He delicate pastel drawings of Srinagar of the Jhelum river with one of the

especially the mountain regions. up-country with the Govemoraccompanied them to Kashmir, and the Vale of Kashmir. These typical barges in the foreground.

Since the British were not permitted to own property in Kashmir, Srinagar never

became

a hill station

and

those

who

were

attracted

to its scenic

features

stayed

instead in houseboats suitably decorated to English taste. The party on the barge,

which includes a European sitting reading, is clearly returning from a hunting expedition

(figure 10). In this rapid pastel sketch, Landseer has captured the essence of life on the river, with the action of one boatman skilfully plying the boat homewards.

Similarly, Landseer's study of a scene in camp realistically conveys the activity of the

porters, cramped in a deep gorge, while an Englishman and woman rest under a canopy (figure 11). After Kashmir, Landseer probably visited Bombay the following year and he also spent some time at Mahabaleshwar, painting a number of evocative watercolours These include two panoramas that convey the grandeur of the scenery and dramatic atmosphere around the plateau. In 1876, like William Simpson whom he would certainly have met in India through the Cannings, he held an exhibition of his Indian pictures, including many of his mountain landscapes, at the Fine Art Society in London.

134

12. View from Matheran.

Edward Lear, May 1874.

Pencil, pen, and sepia ink with wash, size unknown. By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University EDWARD

LEAR (1812-88)

The hill station of Matheran near Bombay was developed in the 1850s, somewhat

later than Ootacamund. It comprises a narrow undulating tableland, an outcrop of the

Sahyadri range of the Western Ghats, and commands extensive views of the area. In

May 1874, Edward Lear visited Matheran, and early one morning made a drawing of

the panoramic view towards Bombay harbour from the plateau (figure 12). His unique style of drawing is evident in this picture of plunging hillsides stretching

through a valley to distant hills. Barely more than a few pencil lines denote the foreground features and two figures precariously placed beside a tree opposite a large boulder, the colour of which he has noted as “dark choc rox”. Thin washes of brown

and cream on the white paper add depth to this delicate study which Lear, as he noted, made rapidly between seven and eight in the morning before the summer haze

changed the entire aspect of the scene.

During his stay in India from 1873 to 1875, Lear was a guest of the Viceroy, Lord

Northbrook. He was an indefatigable traveller and a prolific draughtsman, producing

more than two thousand drawings (now in the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

during this relatively brief visit. He was also a meticulous chronicler of his journeys.

Images that he drew were carefully annotated generally with the date, place, and time of day. He wrote extensively of his impressions and also described this view from Matheran:

“All the beautiful hill forms of the distance, like islands on the wide hazy

Concan (the coastal plains), are exquisite, even at this season, when so much is blurred, or hidden from sight. Then the vast sides of this great chasm, with sweeping

lines of forest here and there, and detached masses of wood, — dark rock and nearer the crests of trees above, and the depths of green below, where not the muffled roar

of the Panther but that of the Langoor (Indian monkey) comes frequent,— all these

135

13. The Rock at Trichinopoly. Edward Lear, September 1874 Pencil, pen, and sepia ink with wash, size unknown. By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

unite to form a truly fine Indian Landscape, tawny and yellow and lilac and pale as is

all its colouring.”

Lear travelled through India by train, sedan chair, cart, and eventually, by steamer up the west coast to Bombay. Progressing through the countryside, he saw towns, palaces, temples, mosques, tanks, rivers, bazaars, ghats crowded with people, and numerous

other subjects that caught

his eye and his pencil. Yet, it seems

to have

been the wide expanses of mountain scenery that especially attracted him, although some regions did not quite match his expectations. At Simla he found the roads like

“Hyde Park on an afternoon with ladies and gentlemen riding”, and was terrified of being tipped out of his jampan (type of sedan chair for hill regions): “These jampanis are quite trusty... although the matter is a nervous one for they always cut the corners

of the road so that you are continually hanging over the abyss below — thousands of feet.”

Despite his age, for he was over sixty by this time, he seems to have been undeterred by such exertions. Another challenging climb was to the summit of the Rock of Trichinopoly: “Drive to the Fort or Rock, and ascend what seems to me one

of the oddest and wildest flights of stairs I ever mounted, all lined with pillars, and

striped red and white. A long way up, after passing strange darkling halls, one comes

out on the bare rock, and certainly the view from that height is very noble, and the

summit of the Rock with its Temple above all make a great foreground to the wide expanse of foliage-covered plain, the broad River Cavery and the Srirangam island with its Temples, and the line of hills beyond. The City below too, is extremely odd and quaint, and altogether I have not seen a more remarkable view in India”

(figure 13). Lear returned more than once to make many watercolours and sketches of

this site between September 10 and 18, 1874. This striking view is dominated by the rock on the right, the bold vertical strokes emphasizing its height and monumentality

MOUNTAINSCAPES BY BRITISH ARTISTS IN INDIA

136

to such an extent that it seems to be rising out of the landscape.

By contrast, the

broad horizontal sweep of the plain and river lie beyond the tank and other temple

buildings on the left. A group of Brahmin priests and devotees, two of whom are

resting while others continue their climb, are seen in the foreground, adding a distinctly human

content to the picture.

Lear's much underestimated landscape drawings, which are totally different in

style from

the romantic

studio

paintings

in oil that he painted

later, have

a most

powerful impact on the spectator. This is largely due to their bold economy of line, reflecting his broad and unique vision of the subject. Each of these artists and especially James Baillie Fraser, being a fellow Scot,

would have understood the sentiments of William Simpson, who wrote poetically in 1874 after his first visit to India and the Himalayas: “My first love in art was a

Highland mountain, and I have been a mountain worshipper ever since. Fate has privileged me to visit many shrines of this faith,—the Alps, the Caucasus, the Himalayas,

the Mountains of Abyssinia... . I think that a valley, however beautiful it

may be, never could have become a sacred object, such as mountains seem to have been all over the world.

A great high peak, soaring up into Heaven, with its garments

of snow, white and pure, often lost in the clouds, as if communing with those above, its icy barriers setting it apart like consecrated ground where the profane

tread, — these

are the features

of the higher mountains,

and produced that religious veneration

remote antiquity.”

of which we

which

have

have evidences

must not

impressed

men

from the most

BIBLIOGRAPHY ‘Abbey, J. R. (ed. M. Oliver), Travel in Aquatint and Lithography 1770-1860 from the Library ofJ. R. Abbey: A Bibliographical Catalogue. 2 vols. London, 1957. Archer, M. Early Views of India: The Picturesque Journeys of Thomas and William Daniell 1786-94. London, 1980. Archer, M. and Falk, T. India Revealed: The Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35. London, 1989. Archer, M. and R. Lightbown. India Observed: India as Viewed by British Artists 1760-1860. Exhibition catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum. London, 1982. Barron, R. Views in India, Chiefly among the Neelgherry Hills. London, 1837. Daniell, T. and W. Oriental Scenery. London, 1795-1808. Dehejia, Vidya. Impossible Picturesqueness: Edward Lear's Indian Watercolours, 1873-1875. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Lid., 1989. Fraser, J. B. Views in the Himala Mountains. London, 1820. —. Journal of a Tour through Part of the Snowy Range of the Himala Mountains and to the Sources of the Rivers Jumna and Ganges. London, 1820. Godrej, P. and P. Rohatgi. Scenic Splendours: India through the Printed Image. London: The British Library, 1989. Home, R. Select Views in Mysore, the Country of Tippoo Sultan. London, 1794. Lear, Edward. “Indian Journals". Manuscript at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Shellim, M. Oil Paintings of India and the East by Thomas and William Daniell. London, 1979, Tooley, R. V. English Books with Coloured Plates 1790-1860. London, 1954 ‘ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, I should like to express my most grateful thanks to Timothy Goodhue and Marilyn Hunt, Yale Center for British Art: Anne Anninger, Houghton Library; Megan Smith, Harvard College Library: and members of my family, Soonu Godrej, Raika Godrej, Navroze Godrej, Mitha and Phiroze Shroff, without whose support I could not have written this article.

137

CHARGED

WITH

THE

SPIRIT

WILLIAM SIMPSON

OF

THE

EAST

JENIFER GLYNN

The ordinary traveller who “does”

India sees Bombay,

Calcutta,

Benares,

Agra and Delhi, but the vast spaces between he sees nothing of. It is in these spaces that the real India exists. Simpson's Recollections

In 1859 plans were announced for a grand book on India, with two hundred and fifty illustrations by William Simpson. The revolt of 1857 was just over, the problems of the Government of India were very much in the news and likely to remain so, and public interest was strong. William Russell's despatches from India in 1858 had, as Delane of ‘The Times wrote, “first made India known to us, described its aspect and its peculiarities, so that we have before our eyes at least the scene of so many exploits and reverses”.

Simpson, who had made his name drawing the Crimean War for The Seat of War in the East, aimed to complement Russell's work in India as he had done in the Crimea.

The publisher was the lithographer William Day, who had been responsible for David Roberts’ Holy Land, and the illustrations, covering “Scenery, Manners, and Customs of the People, Architecture, and other objects of interest", were to have the finest colour

lithography available.

For Simpson, this was only the beginning of a long association with India. Over

the next twenty-five years he visited the subcontinent four times. The first visit, 62, was

for Day

and

Sons;

then,

as a “Special

Artist” reporting

for the

1859-

Jllustrated

London News, he covered the tour of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VID in 187576, the Afghan War of 1878-79, and Sir Peter Lumsden's Afghan Boundary Commission

in 1885. He travelled widely, filling pocket sketch-books with thumb-nail sketches, as well as making more elaborate and detailed topographical drawings, and studies of people and events, often with additional colour washes and notes; these would sometimes be worked up into finished watercolours later. Travel rouse

in interest in

archaeology and anthropology which became increasingly important in his life. Today

WILLIAM SIMPSON

138

he is appreciated for the enchanting watercolours with their often brilliant yet harmonious shades of colour that capture the light and atmosphere, the vitality of the

people, and the variety of the architecture. They provide a vivid counterpart to the photographs by, for example, Dr John Murray and Samuel Bourne which date from the same time.

Simpson was self-taught as a painter, having come from an appallingly poor home in Glasgow, where he spent his childhood helping his mother cope with

domestic chores and his drunken father. The only schooling he had was for fifteen months from the age of eleven when he lived with his widowed grandmother in Perth; but this was at “the best writing school in town”,! and Simpson's success there

led his mother to send him, for his first job, to the lithographic office belonging to the son of a family where she went cleaning. Simpson later moved to a larger lithographic firm, Allan and Ferguson, as an apprentice, and while learning the basics of lithography he improved his education in an enthusiastic and haphazard way by going to the free introductory lectures (and others when he could borrow tickets) at the Andersonian University and the Mechanics’ Institute.

He became increasingly interested in sketching people and scenes — though he was too shy to go out sketching on Sundays until he had saved enough for suitably decent clothes—and he went to evening classes in technical drawing when the Glasgow School of Design opened in 1845. His employer lent him books, such as those by the landscape painter and lithographer J. D. Harding, so that he could copy drawings; in his dinner hour he walked round ‘the streets to look at paintings and watercolours in shop windows, and he would save his dinner penny to buy colours. When business was slack he explored Glasgow to draw old buildings for lithographs. He soon developed the feeling for the picturesque which, together with his habit of picking up oddments of knowledge wherever he could, was to dominate his life. LONDON,

1851

Promising young lithographers from Allan and Ferguson were encouraged to move to London. In Glasgow the only work on offer was the reproduction of line-drawings of plans, machinery, letterheads, or tickets, In London there was also the more artistic work for book illustrations, and for pictures (often in colour) of people and places in the news. So in 1851 Simpson, now twenty-seven and ambitious, came south and found work at Day and Sons, with a starting salary of £2 a week. The Great Exhibition of 1851 made it a busy year for lithographers, and Simpson became skilled at rapid sketching and turning rough sketches into finished pictures. A new challenge came in 1854 when pictures of the Crimea were suddenly needed and there was little for lithographers to work on. In the past, if illustrations were needed of a foreign trouble spot, the firms of Colnaghi or Ackermann had generally been able to produce helpful prints, but the Crimea was beyond their scope. This time Colnaghi came to Day with rough sketches sent from the Black Sea, and Simpson re-drew them on stone. Then, wanting something more authentic, Colnaghi arranged with Day to send Simpson out as war artist. When the idea was put to him, Simpson was lying on his office floor recovering from having a tooth extracted; he had never before travelled out of Britain, but after whirlwind preparations he left enthusiastically the following night The Crimean work made Simpson famous — the original drawings were exhibited, the books sold well, commissions came from Queen Victoria. and Simpson was launched as an artist, traveller, and antiquary, Aticr the war itself he bad been invited

WILLIAM SIMPSON

1. Fort of Amber, including part of the Raj Mahal and Elephant Stables bordering the Lake, Rajasthan, William Simpson ‘Watercolour, 47.2 x 48 centimetres, Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

139

140

WILLIAM SIMPSON

2. Temples of the Devi near Simla and Chini From Simpson's scrapbook of Buddhist Architecture & Archaeology. Courtesy The British Architectural Libriry RIBA, London

WILLIAM SIMPSON

141

3, Worship of the Devi near Chini. William Simpson, 1860. Watercolour, 35 x 50.5 centimetres. By courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,

to sketch on a tour of Circassia with the Duke of Newcastle, “going through experiences

as old as the time of Abraham”, and getting the confidence and restlessness that made

him ready to set off for two or three years on his own in India. He had become Day and

Sons’ star performer,

THE

the obvious GREAT

It did not work out that way.

artist for their next book.

TOUR

For Simpson

OF

INDIA,

1859-62

the tour was

in most ways a success, a

highly influential and productive time of his life. This was the only journey in his

many

years of wandering when

he could be a travelling artist in the David Roberts

tradition, not a reporter—in the Crimea his drawings had always been made as quickly as possible, and all his later travels were to be as a “Special Artist” for the Illustrated London News. The result was that India inspired not only his best work as an artist, but also the development of his interests in people, architecture, archaeology,

religion, and mysticism. Always scholarly in his approach, Simpson prepared himself

by going to the Library of the India Office (then at East India House in Leadenhall Street, London) to get some idea of what there was to see and what else had already

been drawn; he studied the works of the Daniells, especially their Oriental Scenery, as a guide to plan his travels. As soon as he arrived in Calcutta he started to learn the

language.

142

4. East Gateway to the Buddhist Tope at Sanchi. William Simpson, 1862 Watercolour, 36.5 x 26 centimetres

By courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

5. The Kutb Minar, Delhi.

6. Step Well at Allahabad.

Watercolour, size unknown.

‘Watercolour, size unknown.

‘William Simpson.

‘William Simpson.

Courtesy The Mitchell Library, Glasgow.

Courtesy The Mitchell Library, Glasgow.

While Simpson was away, though, Day and Sons, once the most distinguished

lithographers in London, went bankrupt. Simpson’s watercolours brought him fame,

with The Times praising his “picturesque accuracy” in an exhibition “charged with the spirit of the East” (/ndia,

Thibet & Cashmere,

at the German

Gallery in New

Bond

Street, London in 1866) (figure 1); but he had lost such fortune as he had, having

spent his own money on the expedition. Even the watercolours belonged to Day and

Sons. Good craftsmen had deserted the sinking firm, and the fifty pictures which had been lithographed were poorly done. No one could have been proud of the book

India Ancient and Modern, which appeared in 1867, a rump of the original project. In India Simpson showed

his talent for fitting in wherever he went, whether as

the only European in a remote village or on grand tours with the Governor-General,

when he encouraged Lady Canning and artistically-minded officers to turn the camp

into “a gigantic sketching excursion”. Watching parcels of muslin presented at durbars,

he noticed the green and gold tickets, like those he himself used to design in his early

WILLIAM SIMPSON

144

days for the muslins of Manchester or Glasgow; indeed, it has recently been pointed out that the picture labels glued to these bales of cloth became a strong influence on the style of wall paintings in the Shekhawati district of Rajasthan.’ This curious link

between Simpson and Indian folk art would have particularly pleased him. Simpson's tour covered

far more than the scenes of the revolt. He travelled to

Gaumukh, the Cow’s Mouth, the holy source of the Ganges, in a journey sufficiently adventurous for him to describe it in a paper to the Alpine Club (Alpine Journal, May

1874). He spent a week in Tibet seeing monasteries and prayer wheels and studying

the Buddhist way of life (figures 2 and 3), arousing interests that led to his book

The

Buddbist Praying Wheel in 1896. He ruminated on Greek influence on Buddhist

architecture in the Punjab, again starting thoughts that continued to haunt him and

emerge in later articles. He sketched tribesmen in Peshawar, zenana ladies in Delhi, a nautch

in the Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir,

the rock-cut temples of Elephanta near

Bombay, and prayer cylinders in the Himalayas. His confidence and eccentricity grew with his travels; and wherever he went

in India, as in the Crimea,

he built up the

network of friends and miscellaneous knowledge that enriched his future journeys.

Simpson’s involvement with Indian life shows in his pictures, with their markets

and wells and schools, their priests and craftsmen and rural scenes. He appreciated the variety of different cultures as he appreciated variety in architectural styles and

ornamental details. On his return he gave his views in a paper to the Royal Institute of British Architects,’ telling them that the most interesting building in India was the two thousand-year-old Buddhist stupa at Sanchi; he admired its “Buddhist Railing”, an

impressive early example of essentially wooden construction carried out in stone, and

its gates, with their sculptures representing not only great ceremonies but also domestic

scenes still recognizable in Indian villages (figure 4). Unconventionally, he considered that the finest mosque

in India was

in the Purana

Qila

in Delhi,

and

that European

influence on Indian architecture, already disastrously apparent by the time of Shah Jahan, had caused the Taj to be covered with “tawdry ornament”. His audience listened to these strange views without protest. The architectural historian James Fergusson only regretted that Simpson did not intend “to publish an architectural

work, instead of a drawing room book”. That drawing-room book has recently been supplemented by the publication of some of Simpson's charming Indian sketch-books in Mildred Archer’s Visions of India: the Sketchbooks of William Simpson 1859-62. THE

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON

NEWS

Simpson's hopes for a comfortable supply of money and the opportunity to paint for more exhibitions had been swept away with the ruin of William Day; but the new

pictorial press, which had helped to bring about that ruin, came to Simpson's rescue.

He started his new career with the Ilustrated London Neus, at first as a freelance, and then

in 1868

on

the staff to record

the war

in Abyssinia.

He

had

many

obvious

qualifications to be a “Special”. His sketch-books show his ability to record quick impressions of places and people, and as a trained lithographer he knew how to make his sketches suitable for reproduction. He could equally happily give the wide

sweep of a. landscape, or some unexpected detail of local life. or an’ architectural study; and he could write about what he saw. “As a Special Antist,” he wrote in the fiftieth anniversary number of the M/ustrated London New

have at

all times felt that

I was not seeing for myself alone, but that others would see through my eyes, and that eyes yet unborn would, in the pages of the Mustrated London News. do the

145,

|

———

7. Excavation of the Ahin Posh Tope. near Jellalabad Secti il studies by W Simpson reproduced in RIBA Journal 1879-80, Courtesy The British Architectural Library, RIBA, London,

WILLIAM SIMPSON

146

8. The Canal at Roorkee. William Simpson, 1863. Watercolour, 35.5 x 50.8 centimetres. Courtesy India Office Library and Records (O10C), The British Library, London.

same.” His enthusiasm for sightseeing and accumulating information never failed. Writing reports as well as drawing, he wandered round the Mediterranean examining

the planned new route to India, with the Mont Cenis Tunnel and the Suez Canal; he studied Captain Warren's excavations in Jerusalem, he endured the dangers of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune in Paris, and he travelled round the world, taking in the wedding of the Emperor of China and the Modoc Wars in California. Then, in 1875, he was back in India. IN INDIA WITH

THE

PRINCE

OF WALES,

1875-76

This was a very different visit to India. He was covering the tour of the Prince of Wales, with all its formalities, crowds, and fuss; it was a tour that he described despairingly as “four months of the Lord Mayor's Show”. There was more pleasure in the two or three weeks of comparative informality when Simpson was one of the few correspondents with the Prince on his hunting expedition to the Terai, in Nepal. Simpson's subsequent exhibition, India “Special”, held at the Burlington Gallery. London in 1876, showed two hundred drawings; there were no finished watercolours, and nothing was priced at more than thirty guineas, but there were some fine watercolour sketches (figures 5 and 6), and many sepia drawings which he had sent back for engraving. Twelve of the drawings that had been bought by the Prince were

WILLIAM SIMPSON

9, Detail of figure &.

1“

WILLIAM SIMPSON

148

photographed and printed in sepia to make a souvenir book, Sbikara and Tomasha. Simpson had become, as the Art Journal said, “the prince of pictorial correspondents”.

It was only three years before he was once again back in India. His main activity

in that time had been to report on — and to criticize with surprising sharpness — Schliemann's excavations at Mycenae and Troy.

THE AFGHAN WAR, 1878-79 Unlike the second, the reason for Simpson’s third visit to India was a war. “I see one

of the artistic sons of, Glasgow is off to face danger in Cabul — ‘Crimean Simpson’ —

wherever shot and shell and ugly sword-blades are about, there he is sure to be”; so wrote the Glasgow paper The Baillie in 1878. Simpson was proud of the intrepid reputation he had built up in the Crimea, in the Modoc Wars and in the siege of Paris,

and he was happy to be back in India for what was to be his last. experience of war,

joining Sir Samuel

Browne's

fortress of Ali Musjid.

force in their advance through the Khyber Pass to the

The Second Afghan War turned out to be a curious time for Simpson, a mixture

of battles and archaeology. Two days after being in the centre of the fighting at Ali Musjid, he was wandering off pursuing his more peaceful interests: “Sketched a

village,” he noted in his diary, “came on to the Ishpola Tope — I had been looking at

caves in the rocks and thinking of ascetics, when I came in view of the tope. The square base is a point in design different from the Manikiala Tope. The compressed

Corinthian Capitals are if anything more distinctly Corinthian. The mode of building with stones, slightly squared, and the spaces filled up with thin slates is peculiar to those of Peshawa Valley and old Taxila... .” To the military sports and games which were organized for the army waiting for

peace negotiations in Jalalabad, Simpson added the less conventional amusement of

an excavation of the nearby Ahin Posh Tope. He organized the excavation with care and efficiency, visiting the site daily, studying the construction, drawing, measuring,

and arranging for a tunnel to be dug to the centre (figure 7). In the centre he found

a cell with a gold relic holder, twenty coins, and a small pile of ashes — probably, he

thought, the remains of holy men. “As to finding the gold coins,” he wrote to a friend,

“that caused people to talk, but it was not a great thing to do — even a Schliemann can do that sort of thing, but I have bagged all the architecture — what Schliemann could not do.” He was turning the expedition into an archaeological party as he had tumed Canning's camp into a sketching party. It is not surprising that six months filled this way led, not to an exhibition, but to

about two hundred and fifty sketches pasted into a large album, and another large

album of archaeological discoveries (now in the RIBA Library). Simpson also wrote

busily — for the Edinburgh Review, Fraser's Magazine, the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was

becoming recognized as an authority

on India and Afghanistan, in his strange way, as well as an artist.

On his journey back from Afghanistan, Simpson had a letter telling him of the

death of his feckless father, whom he had been supporting for the last twenty-five

years. Remembering his own early poverty, and remembering too William Day's

unexpected failure, Simpson had not in all that time felt secure enough to take on any

further responsibility. Now he could look forward to a new life. at the age of fifty-se

he married the portrait painter

a turquoise ring which he had bought in

Maria

and in January 1881,

Eliza Burt — giving her

Kashmir for three rupees twenty years

earlier. Their only child, Ann Penelope, was born in January 1884, It was for his

149

centimetres, By courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,

1 . Mosque Ghat, Benares William Simpson Watercolour, 36 x $2 centimetres, By courtesy of the Board of Trusteesof the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

WILLIAM SIMPSON

150

daughter that he wrote his Recollections, so that “when she grows up she may through them learn something of her father's life” Marriage did not end Simpson's travels, though his wife seems to have accompanied him only once, to the coronation: of Czar Alexander III in 1883. There were many other minor jaunts as a roving “Special”, but only one more major expedition — back

to Afghanistan for eight months, this time as the sole correspondent with the British

delegation at the Boundary Commission in 1884. THE

AFGHAN

BOUNDARY

COMMISSION,

1885

The most exotic part of this last expedition was the journey itself. Simpson joined the

delegation for the thousand-mile horseback trek from Teheran to Meshed, camping in

the desert, passing mud villages and fortresses, giving him a last sight of the countryside and pilgrims and tribesmen he loved. He produced illustrated articles on everything he saw, not only for the Illustrated London Neus, but also for journals as varied as

the Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and the Royal Institute

of British Architects Journal. He wrote on every aspect of the area — the strategic

importance, the Turkoman carpets (already suffering from modern Western dyes), the

glazed tiles, the elaborate silver jewellery, the mud architecture. Little was happening at the frontier itself, so after a winter of sketching and reporting Simpson set off home, accompanied, as far as the

Caspian, by only one servant and a man to look

after the baggage horses. After this expedition Simpson again did no finished watercolours, but he collected the Hlustrated London News drawings and the drawings

in his sketch-book (including a particularly fine group of portraits of Afghan tribesmen),

and pasted them all into a scrapbook.

At home Simpson relived his journeys by assembling yet more huge scrapbooks,

working up old sketches (figures 8-11), preparing his Recollections, and indulging his

taste for archaeology and anthropology in endless papers for learned societies. The papers may

have little value now,

but it was the intellectual curiosity behind

them

that had always given him exceptional sympathy with the subjects he drew. His deep

involvement with India never faded, even if the original grand book had been shorn

into insignificance. William Simpson, perhaps more than any other British painter in India, did indeed show the “scenery, manners and customs of the people”

NOTES 1, This quotation, like all others in the article, unless Recollections, which was edited after Simpson's death to possession of Simpson's great-geindson, Adrian Lipscomb, 2 May Cooper, The Independent, February 18, 1989. 3. William Simpson, On the Architecture of India, RIBA 4. Mildred Archer and Paul ‘Theroux. Visions of India: Phaidon, 1986,

otherwise attributed, is from Simpson's MS Noles & appear ay the Autobiography in 1903: the MS is in the who hay kindly allowed this writer permission to use it Transactions, May 1862, the Sketchbooks of William Simpson 1859-62, Oxtord

FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Photograph of William Simpson in a turban, signed and dated IN9L, courtesy Adrian Lipscomb:

151

APPARELL’D INDIAN

IN CELESTIAL

PAINTINGS

INDAR

To emphasize

one truth,

OF

ALBERT

LIGHT GOODWIN

PASRICHA

one is bound almost to understate another... . Goodwin's diary, May 31, 1915

Born on January 17, 1845 at Maidstone in Kent, Albert Goodwin was the seventh of eight children of Samuel and Rosetta Goodwin. His father had a building business

and was responsible for at least two chapels in Maidstone, where his brother was an organ builder. The Goodwin family was remarkably talented and one which actively encouraged the Arts and Crafts Movement. Albert's eldest brother, William Sydney, established a considerable career in the Royal Engineers Ordnance Office in France and Belgium in 1861-62. He then took part in the first survey of Mount Sinai, making

models on the spot which were later presented to the British Museum and the South Kensington Museum. He also assisted in the survey of the Great Pyramid, subsequently

surveying Stonehenge and discovering the effect of the sun on the monument at the time of the summer and winter solstices. Two other brothers, Harry and Frank, were artists of some merit, while another, William, was a frame-maker of distinction.

On leaving school, Albert was apprenticed to a draper in Maidstone but left after six months. His talent as a draughtsman caught the attention of a local printer, Vince Hall,

who

knew

William

Holman

Hunt

(one

of the founder

members

of the Pre-

Raphaelite Brotherhood). According to family tradition, Hunt introduced Albert to Arthur Hughes who, impressed by his talent and precocity, persuaded Goodwin's parents to allow their son to become his pupil. A more romantic version written by Albert Goodwin himself, appeared in the catalogue to the Arthur Hughes’ Memorial Exhibition held at the Walker's Gallery in London in 1916: “Some fifty-five years ago a small weedy-looking

boy was sitting on his coat fumblingly

trying to paint from

nature. He was in a green wood where willows were, and water. There came along a pleasant-looking young man who looked at him and smiled in a friendly way. Said he

too was a ‘bit of a Painter’ and invited the boy to come and see him and his work. It

was the event of a [ad's life; and he went and saw and found the beginning of his

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN,

152

inspiration there. This was the first act of a long series of kindnesses which started the

boy on that artistic road which is said to be longer than our little life. | was that weedy boy, Arthur Hughes was the bit of a painter.” In the preface to an exhibition held at the Fine Art Society in London in

November

1890, Goodwin

wrote, “In this matter of indebtedness

it may not be out of

place to say that any good there may be in my drawings is mainly due to the kindness and help that were given me in early life, first by Arthur Hughes, who found

me stumbling in doubt and difficulty, and whose unselfish goodness brought me out of miry clay and (artistically) set my feet upon a rock, and who, not content with this, passed me on to Ford Maddox Brown, from whom I learned the need of hard work, and whose patience with a most obstinate assistant I look back at now with wonder. Last of all to John Ruskin, who took me to Italy in a most princely way and

aggravated me out of the licence I had hitherto indulged myself (of colour regardless of form) and made me draw.”

Goodwin was fortunate in finding Arthur Hughes as his teacher. Hughes shared

with him

an inclination to another worldliness, a concern

for the spiritual which was

to become such an important aspect of Goodwin’s work. His learning continued when

he became an assistant to Ford Maddox

Brown.

Brown was perhaps the most

intellectual of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the most significant as a painter of landscapes.

His fascination with unexpectedly observed detail and a brilliance of colour had their effect on Goodwin. In a letter written by Ford

Maddox

Brown

to one of his patrons, James

Leathart

of Newcastle, Brown recommended his pupil Goodwin, with the prediction that he

would

become

one of the “greatest landscape painters of his time”. He continued:

“My pupil Mr. Goodwin has recently returned from Jersey with a very admirable set of

drawings — As I promised him to send them to you for inspection and also you may

remember promised you to do so, I take it upon me without further leave to have

them placed in the case with ‘Oure Ladye’ for although, as you say, you are not at present prepared for extensive purchase, yet these drawings, all who have seen them.

think them so very beautiful that I cannot help thinking that you will retain some of them.

Considering

how

fine most of them

are and the extreme

youth of the artist

(then only 19) I think there can be no doubt of his becoming before long one of the

greatest landscape painters of the age. Hughes who this afternoon to help us to price them.”

was his first master came over

It was perhaps from Brown and the other Pre-Raphaelites with whom he had

come into contact, that Goodwin leamt about particular natural phenomena. must

also have been

responsible

for his use

of both

brilliant bursts

They

of light, and

emptiness, to emphasize the spirituality of nature and describe the inwardness that

makes landscape painting worthwhile. Up to this time colour was his main concern.

His diary of June 29, 1900 noted: “Is not colour a manifest expression of enjoyment? Life is colour; death is absence. In proportion as you get up into purer Alpine light

and air do the flowers

increase

in brilliancy.

Heaven

is colour,

Hell is absence.

It must have been through Hughes and Brown that Goodwin met John Ruskin,

with whom he stayed in Abingdon in 1871. In the spring of the following year, Ruskin

(1818-1900), after delivering his Oxford lectures (where he was Slade Professor), took a three month journey to Europe including the Alps and Rome, accompanied by Goodwin and Arthur Severn. Ruskin’s influence on Goodwin helped him understand

the importance of form and gave him the structure he needed to anchor his love of colour: “We painters all paint the same scene differently: for we naturally lay the stress on those things in that scene that we love, whether in colour, black and white or form. If we love darkness, we shall dote, as Constable did, on the black shadows.

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

153

1. The Indian Winter, Taj Mahal, Agra. Albert Goodwin, signed and dated 1898, Watercolour on paper, 25.4 x 36.83 centimetres.

Colour

has been

to me

the joy of life. And

I owe

much

thanks to Ruskin,

who

ballyragged me into love of form when I was getting too content with colour alone:

and colour alone is luxury. Liberty, which, too much used, ends in licentiousness. The

study of form is the needful curb to check this.” (Goodwin's diary, July 18, 1900)

However, Goodwin “could not renounce the sensuousness that he felt expressed

his spiritual response to nature”. This pagan aspect to his personality both illuminated

his work and caused him great anguish as he coped with his Christianity. Goodwin

shared Ruskin’s belief in Christianity, which at that time was: “A supremely confident

religion, the middle class Protestantism of the nineteenth century combined a genuine desire to improve the lot of the less fortunate classes and less fortunate nations with a superior attitude to other denominations as well as other religions.” Further, “The evangelical influence on Ruskin and his confidence in the Empire made

him see India as primitive,

cruel and despotic.”

Ruskin's view of Indian art as

inferior in quality to European art, followed. He dismissed Indian architecture as a creation of an irrational religion: “We may acknowledge the authority of the Lombardic

gryphons in a mere splendour of their presence, without thinking idolatory an excuse for mechanical misconstruction, or dreading to be called upon in other cases, to admire a systemless architecture, because it may happen to have sprung from an irrational religion.” Goodwin must have been aware of Ruskin’s views and from some of his diary entries it can be confirmed that he agreed with them.

154

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

2. Sunset, the Taj Mahal, Agra Albert Goodwin, id dated 1905, Oil on board. 44.45 x 59.6 centimetres.

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

3. The Taj Mahal, Agra. Albert Goodwin, signed and dated 1910. Watercolour with body-colour, 24.76 x 35.56 centimetres. Over and above these influences, that of J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) had the greatest impact on his mature style. The technical virtuosity “and in its skillful

combination of washing, hatching and scraping-out points beyond Hunt or Palmer or the Pre-Raphaelites to the inspiration of them all was Turner”. Goodwin had realized that “Turner's great forte in the rendering of a unifying atmosphere which absorbs

and illuminates his subject matter was a necessary accomplishment of the landscape painter”. He used this together with epiphanic bursts of light in creating a vocabulary

which served him for the rest of his life. Turner’s obvious influence on Goodwin was

immense, but it was because both approached their work from somewhat similar

standpoints. They recorded impressions which heightened reality, rather than trying to

imitate it. They did what Ruskin wrote in The Eagle's Nest. “You do not see with the

lens of the eye. You see through that, and by means of that, you see with the soul of

the eye.” However great Goodwin's debt was to Turner, his mature style was entirely

and recognizably his own.

155

156

4, The Jasmine Tower ‘or Saman Burj, Agra Fort Albert Goodwin, signed and dated 1918. Watercolour, body-colour and oil, 27.30 x 35.56 centimetres. 5. The Taj Mahal at Dawn, Agra Albert Goodwin, signed and dated 1918, Oil on board, size unknow

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

INDIA,

In late 1894 and early 1895 Goodwin

was

157

1894-95

in India for about two

months.

He had

been persuaded to go to India by a Dr G. B. Longstaff who probably paid for this

adventure. Despite his short stay, India was to be a major source of inspiration, as a

result of which he produced some of his more significant works. There are no diary

entries for the period that he was in the country. Information about his reactions to India is available in his later diaries and exhibition catalogues. Throughout his life,

Goodwin had difficulty in reconciling his “pagan” nature with his belief in Protestantism.

In spite of the suspicion and the abhorrence which he felt for India, to him, its

idolatrous culture gave him the licence to explore his own pagan nature without compromising his Christianity. What he saw in India beth fascinated and repelled

him. It allowed him, as an artist, to forget the confines of a “Victorian” Christianity in his attempts to paint what he saw and felt. In the preface to a catalogue of an exhibition held

in the Fine Art Society in

February 1896, Goodwin wrote: “My ‘Bogey Pictures’ (as some of my friends call them), I am conscious, verge perhaps on the morbid, but some of the most stirring scenes one looks upon have had so much terror mixed with their beauty that there

are excuses for one even here. The awfulness of the Alps, for instance, is to me a chief attraction. The picture I have called ‘The corridors of Hell’, was painted partly in

memory of a very appalling thunderstorm I once saw among them. This, joined (as

seemed natural) with the sort of devilish lime-kiln architecture that Hindooism produces,

made what seemed a consistent whole which I had either to paint, to lay the ghost

that haunted, or to be kept awake at night by it! India has been to me a new

inspiration,

though

melancholy land.”

the prevailing

memory

of the

‘gorgeous

east’

is as of a very

Taj MAHAL, AGRA In the catalogue of the exhibition of Imaginative Landscape in Europe and Asia held

at the Fine Art Society, the following account by Goodwin of the Taj Mahal appeared:

“As literal a transcript as I could make it. When the real is so perfect under conditions of such perfection as in these gardens — perfect temperature (January 1895), complete

quiet, broken only by some sort of Gregorian chant of the natives. (I think all the Gregorian chants come from India, the natives have no other sort of melody.) The occasional ‘globe trotter’ is the only visible incongruity.”

In a review of this exhibition, The Studio (April 1896) announced: “The recent exhibition at the Galleries of the Fine Art Society of a collection of water-colour

drawings by Mr. Albert Goodwin bore striking evidence of the individuality and remarkable powers of that painter... . We have selected one, the TAJ MAHAL, for presentation in our pages, because we think it fairly typical of Mr.

Goodwin's

work.

There are some scenes that are so beautiful that they defy the power of the average painter to give adequate

expression

to them.

Such

a one

is the great

mausoleum

erected by Shah Jehan. Painters and photographers alike have lamented their utter inability to catch the subtle beauty, the sublimity of this great work of art and nature. That Mr. Goodwin has succeeded in this in a marvellous degree is convincing evidence

of his rare talent.”

For more than twenty years after his visit to India, Goodwin painted scenes of the Taj Mahal from different viewpoints, always conscious of the changing light and atmosphere, the time of day,

and weather (figure 1). Here, the Taj, painted in winter,

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

158

is seen in the distance beyond the Jumna, the river cutting across the picture. In the

foreground, people are seen approaching the river. A species of palm tree is placed in the right foreground. The river is used as a device to separate the ordinary from the magical. The Taj is painted in such an incredibly subtle manner that it appears to float through the winter mist.

Another view of 1905 portrays the Taj Mahal at sunset (figure 2), silhouetted against a brilliant twilight sky. Goodwin has captured the quality of light amid clouds which appears so briefly during an Indian sunset. The Taj Mahal takes on a mystical aspect and is seen to hover over the smoke

that covers the Jumna.

river separates the extraordinary from the mundane.

Here again the

The powerful rendering of

clouds and the radiant colour create a romantic image, a truly evocative experience of

the Taj Mahal. Five years later, Goodwin painted a somewhat symbolic view with the Taj Mahal set against a grey and menacing sky (figure 3). The buildings within the garden dominate the composition and contrast with the expanse of foreground. Its emptiness

seems to stress the power of the Taj, towards which people are walking in procession

as if on a pilgrimage.

Although it is not generally possible to tie up Goodwin's diary with particular paintings, his entries nevertheless convey much about his method of working and conscious difficulties in painting such a subject. For example, his diary of February 15, 1911 noted: “Screwed myself up to enough energy to take up an oil picture

(possibly for R. A.) and settled to see if I could finish one of the ‘Taj Mahal, Agra’— begun some years ago. Today I have been wrestling with its perspective, a thing I fight shy of, hardly knowing the elementary rules of it, but nearly always trusting to instinct. N.B. — My instinct is apt to lead me here into grave error, and in a subject of this kind, one must, to some extent, go (at least in the foundation) by rule.” A couple of days later he wrote: “After getting almost in despair, and after considerable

paintings-out of the ‘Taj Mahal’ foreground, and completely changing it, managed, I think, to get it in a better state; and it looks a possible success: though it is going to give me trouble yet. But it is a trouble one ought to have, and a wholesorne one; correcting,

as

I think

it will,

some

of my

weaknesses,

in

architectural

suppose I ought to have more system in oil painting, but I have not any.”

drawing,

I

Then on Saturday night, February 18, he noted: “Washed, and put away brushes

and oil paint, for a finish up a week of — what

is to me —a

horrid material, after the

purity of clean-smelling watercolours. Worried over the arrangement of ‘Taj Mahal’ and I suppose with that and the smell of white lead, have gone back to some of my

old depressions. This time it can hardly be from over-eating as I think I have been fairly moderate. I daresay it is nothing, only I don't want to go back to a state of wretchedness for no reason. Thank goodness, though, I have got through one stage of the picture — and with good result, I hope. The drawings I made of — the Taj — are going faint with age, but are still, | hope, enough for me to get some good result from. Anyway, it was my one objective in going to India, and the place I spent most time at while there; so that I ought to try and get at least one important result. I have painted a few on a lesser

scale, but this one view of it (taken

from

the banks of the

Jumner) is one very little known; I well remember the extreme surprise and delight I had on discovering it; it seemed so wonderful that I had never a photo, or a hint that there was

any

side of it more

wonderful

than

the well-known

one

of the

entrance

with the long canal and the cypress avenue, leading up to the white dome. If only

one had a ‘flying carpet’ and could without that long voyage get a sight of it again! “I wonder sometimes if the spirit of old Turner makes use of my personality! I often

find

(or think

I find)

myself

doing

the

very

things

that

he

seemed

to do.

159

win, signed and dated 1899 99.06 x 60.96 centimetres,

161

7. Benares. Albert Goodwin, signed and dated 1917, Watercolour with pen-and-ink, 46.99 x 61.31 centimetres.

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

162

Tonight, cleaned my palette, with the superfluous colour, on to a plain canvas, and

thereby started another subject, suggestion of a tropic sunset, whose colour is splashed on in wild extravagance! After the hard facts of geometrical architecture of the Taj a sunset splash of pure colour is rest!”

On Monday, March 6,

his diary entry reads: “A violent alteration of the whole of

the colour scheme of the ‘Taj’. I found a needful thing on Saturday: after getting more and more dissatisfied with it all the week. These leaps in the dark have to be taken,

and are always trails of faith: but one is generally rewarded for taking them. In this case, though half the day was distraction, the other half showed clearly that the leap

was quite a wise jump! And I was able to have a peaceful Sunday,

after putting the

picture away, in certainly an advanced stage towards finish, and looking far more

right than it hitherto has done.” The following Sunday he noted: “Yesterday delivered into Agent's hand the picture ‘Taj Mahal’.”

Almost seven years later on Monday, December 17, 1917 (nearly twenty-three years after he had visited the Taj) he wrote: “Painted today small replica of an outline of] the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort. This, when I saw it from the top of the fort overlooking the Jasmine Tower’, I can remember thinking it worth all the travail to see that alone. I can still hear the Gregorian sort of chanting that came up from the natives below

who were washing clothes of Agra in the Jumna River. No wonder I stayed on top to

see the sunset and got locked in the Fort! and spent an hour in trying to find out how I could climb down and get back to my hotel, but found no safe exit. I wandered

through hot, dust-carpeted halls which had been the Harem of Alibar's [sic] descendants,

not knowing

that these places had a bad reputation for snakes.

At last 1 remember

going in despair to the iron gate and keeping up a persistent banging till a sergeant’s

wife passing, heard, called her husband, who kept the keys and who very sulkily

unlocked the gate and let me out.” Goodwin's painting of the Saman Burj or Jasmine Tower in the Agra Fort includes

the Taj

Mahal

in the distance

correct.

It shows

the Jasmine

(figure

4). This

building,

where

the chief

begam lived, is approached from the Diwan-i-Khas by a staircase. The tower comprises a pavilion with a fountain anda retiring room close to the river. The marble pavement in front of the pavilion is made to represent a pachisi board (Indian game). Of all Goodwin's paintings of the Taj Mahal illustrated here, this is the most topographically Tower

in the middle

ground,

and

in the distance,

the

Taj Mahal, almost as if the marble mausoleum were a mirage. The Jumna is again

used as the dividing line between the reality of the tower in this case and the fugitive nature of the Taj itself. This is the view that Shah Jehan could well have had during his eight years as prisoner in the fort. The handling of paint to convey the quality of

marble, sunlight catching the Taj, and gold on the dome in the foreground is extremely subtle. In the same year, Goodwin painted a dawn view of the Taj Mahal

seen at a distance across the river (figure 5). Lit by the early morning sun, it seems to

rise like some “celestial city”. Villagers in the foreground approach a chbatri (umbrella-

like pavilion) on the banks of the Jumna where a boat waits to ferry them across.

Once again, much of Goodwin's composition is taken up by a cloudy sky exquisitely and dramatically coloured to enhance the mood

of the scene.

BENARES

Goodwin was not only preoccupied with the subject of the Taj Mahal over many years, but he was, it seems, equally fascinated by Benares: “The beauty and horror of India. 1 have tried to put down in the first of these tinted paper drawings, “The

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

8, Benares. Albert Goodwin, signed and dated 1917 Watercolour and body-colour, with pen-and-ink on tinted paper, 17.78 x 25.4 centimetres.

Ganges’ a sunrise at Benares — lurid, gorgeous and dreadful city seen at a distance, with the horrible-looking adjutant birds in front resting after feeding on filth. I am glad I have seen this thing; glad it is a memory with me and that I am not there in reality now.”

(Goodwin's

diary, December

17,

1918)

In an early view dated 1899, he has taken various aspects of the ghats and

woven them into this painting (figure 6). The main structure is based on the Madhoray Musjid, which Aurangzeb erected on the site of the great temple of Vishnu, known as Bindu Madhava, using materials from the temple. The mosque is built on the

Panchganga Ghat beneath which, according to tradition, five rivers meet, and the Ram Ghat. The most imposing architectural features of the mosque were its minarets, and in the painting Goodwin has stretched the whole aspect of the ghats and minarets

skywards. In the foreground, at river level, he has placed temples forming part of Manikarnika Ghat rather than the Panchganga

Ghat. In the centre of the painting is

the Raja of Alwar’s temple which is partly submerged. On the extreme left is the

temple of Tarkeshwara, Tarak signifying “He who ferries over”. Below this temple, the bodies of Hindus are cremated. In the left foreground is a palanquin, the cover of

which is painted in shades of orange, red, and gold, contrasting with the intense blue

of the sky and pale colours of the buildings. Although the painting is a capriccio, the various activities along the ghats and river associated with this sacred city are distinctly

emphasized. He has not understood the significance of the minarets. Goodwin has painted rather the essence of Benares, stressing the city’s religious symbolism by including both the mosque and temple:

163

164

9. Benares. Albert Goodwin, signed and dated 1918. Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 76.2 centimetres. Exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, 1918.

Yet, as he explained in his diary on November 5, 1917, he was in Benares only

for a very short time: “I saw Benares for two days —I think each day from the river where I engaged a sort of house-boat with a guide who was anxious to show his credentials, and for me to add my testimony to the many names in his book of them,

among others that of Val Prinsep, the painter. The Val that Rossetti’s rhyme, made at

the time when the Frescoes at the ‘Union’ in Oxford were being painted, comes into my mind, and was rather full of Rossetti’s good-natured, admiring contempt for the enormous man with a child's mind:

“There was a young fellow named Val.

The roughs’ and the prize-fighters’ pal; The head of a broom and the brains of a groom Were the gifts Heaven granted to Val.” The same day, Goodwin further recalled events while visiting Benares: “The

guide was a learned pundit and was a very superior person with a contemptuous tolerance for the Christian religion which I gathered he considered a little inferior to Buddhism!

but he allowed

it was on the same

lines! He was an expensive

luxury but

I had to disregard expense, for I needed him to arrange the hire of the boat, the two.

men to manage it when I wanted to stop and draw, and all other details; he was useful, too in telling me things which I otherwise would have puzzled over. One thing I saw under the enormously tall minarets of the only Mohammedan mosque in Benares, and that was half-way between the Ganges and it — a huge coal black pillar, just like an old pine-cone stuck (blunt end downwards) on to a stone pillar — the whole thing, I suppose, forty feet high. This I could not make out the meaning of, nor why it should be in contrast to the brownish yellow stone of most of the buildings. He explained it was for the time of festivals when at night the place was illuminated.

Thus I understood I was too far off to see the detail, but gathered it and saw in my mind the effect, for this was a huge candle, or would look like one, when at night it would be fitted with thousands of oil lamps, and the whole when lighted would make

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

165

a thirty-feet flame. It struck me at once how this would look in the moonlight, with this dominant feature under the greater domination of the commanding mosque, whose gigantic minarets would stand out bluey white against an indigo sky behind it, while down below in the murk and smoke of all the lesser lights this great torch

would light up the whole scene.” The genesis of Goodwin's watercolour dated 1917 (figure 7) took place while he was drawing from the houseboat. Again, he has altered the position of some of the

ghats, but not as drastically as in figure 6. This mysterious painting, dominated by the

mosque, evokes the night-time rituals on the river-front. During the month of Kartika,

in either October or November, at the time of the festival of Dipavali, Hindu pilgrims place oil lamps, dipas, on Panchganga Ghat as an offering to their ancestors. The

lamps are put in small woven baskets and hung from the top of bamboo poles. Hundreds of small lighted wicks are also placed in a great stone lamp. Goodwin was

obviously aware that this festival took place, but he was not familiar with its details

since he shows only the stone lamp alight. It is a landscape full of suggestive details in which the buildings, their outlines clearly defined against the dark sky, seem suspended above the riverside rituals. His diary that day continues: “Afterwards I—from the outline made in the house-boat — painted

this imaginary

moonlight

in the time of the festival which

could not see for I had only two short days to get notes. All the time I was, I felt, getting ready for the fever which I was sure had been steadily pursuing me during my last week

or two in India. I know

I

the two days’ work and the two days’ crushing

weight of all the astonishment and wonder of the sight of kaleidoscopic Benares

(bathing in full action) so took the life out of me that I felt I could not stand another day and took an enormous dose of quinine and went to bed, and with that ‘lift up’ the next day I started home.”

In the same year, 1917, Goodwin painted a small view of the Manikarnika Ghat

(figure 8). This ghat is considered to be the most important in Benares, and it is said to be the place of the earth’s creation as well as its destruction. Goodwin painted the

ghat much as it is today. Just above the flight of steps is the Manikarnika well and

between it and the steps is the Tarakeshwara Temple, dedicated to Siva, on the right of the picture. At the top of the ghat is a temple, which is not in use, named after its

sponsor, Rani Ahalya Bai Holkar. At river level on the left in the painting is another Siva temple named after the Raja of Amethi, which appears submerged in the water. Here Goodwin has conveyed an almost sinister atmosphere, encapsulating feelings of both dread and awe, recalling his impressions of what he saw in Benares but did not

fully comprehend. He has divided the composition into three parts: the sky, the buildings in the middle distance catching the sun's rays, and the silhouettes of the two

temples bordering the river in shadow.

It was mainly in 1917 and 1918 that Goodwin

Taj Mahal and Benares.

devoted

time to the subjects of the

On November 29, 1917 he wrote: “I hope to finish ‘Benares’

this week, which is going slow, but I think surely.” The following Saturday, he noted: “Now it really seems nearly done and satisfactorily so far as 1 can judge, though possibly Monday will show me how I have been in a fools paradise about it. How much more pleasant though Benares is in retrospection. I have had the place before me all the week in greater sense of reality than I had when in the actual city for two days, feeling sure I was in for Indian fever, and but for the big dose of quinine I took, and took at the same

time to my

bed,

I probably would

not be there.

To me

this

method of work is one of the happy things of the Art I practice, for I get the realisation of a place twice over, and often the memory makes the scene a better one than the first experience.”

INDIAN PAINTINGS OF ALBERT GOODWIN

166

The following year, Goodwin was working on his paintings for the Royal Academy exhibition and noted on March 14: “Three pictures as good as completed for R. A., oil

(A Nile Back-water, Cairo and Benares). The last haunted me last night all the time I was asleep and most of the time when I wasn't, but today the haunting has been of

profit, for the result of it was to finish (or as good as to finish) it unless that tomorrow

morn should reverse this verdict; at present it seems a rather happy result of a place

that is as full of horror as any place on earth. ‘The Buming Dead, Benares’ sounds rather an awful title for a picture, but it states the case, as the foreground

is from the

standpoint of the ‘Burning Ghats’. From this point I made a pencil sketch which on

the Australian voyage I painted, and from this and one or two other notes comes this °

icture.”

The next day he noted: “Today I really think that the last after an entire repainting

of it, has arrived. This is perhaps once again the effect of another night’s nightmare

about it. I tossed and tumbled and ever with this subject on my mind, so that when

I got up I almost said to myself, I'll put it altogether away...

but I had a look at it as

I was carrying it upstairs to stow away and a gleam of light came to me which set me

at it again and the result at the end of the day; the verdict was optimistic and this time I do think that it’s ‘out of the woods’.”

The painting of Benares, with which Goodwin had such difficulty (figure 9), was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London in 1918. In the extreme left foreground, a man

is seen standing on what could be the

charanpaduka.

He could be an eldest

son, recently bereaved, wearing a seamless white garment. He looks across towards

the sunset. On the banks of the river can be seen Sindhia’s Ghat, Ghosla Ghat, and

the distant silhouette of Aurangzeb's mosque. The area immediately below is the

cremation ground, also known as Jalasai Ghat. Jalasai or the “sleeper on the waters” is

another name for Vishnu. Several burning funeral pyres can be seen and pilgrims along the ghat are immersing themselves in the river. The scene is lit by the setting sun and is appropriately sombre. The monumental aspect of the ghats adds gravitas

to the ceremonies being performed. Its haunting quality echoes the inscription of a local poet painted on the ghat:

This is Manikarnika, where death is auspicious, Where life is fruitful,

‘Where one gazes at the pastures of Heaven.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cook, E. T. and A. Wedderbum (eds.). The Works of Jobn Ruskin, 39 vols. London, 1903-12 Eck, Diana L. Benares: City of Light. New York, 1982, Goodwin, Albert. Diary. Privately published, 1934. Losty, J. P. “Benares: A study in pictures", The Antique Collector. 1989. Miter, Partha. Much Maligned Monsters. Oxford, 1977 and University of Chicago Press, 1992, Prinsep, James. Benares lilustrated. London and Calcutta, 1830-33. Smith, Hammond. A Biography of Goodwin. Leigh-on-Sea, 1977. Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste. Travels in India, Reprint: Oxford, 1925. Wilton, Andrew. Foreword to Catalogue of Works by Goodwin, Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours. London: Chris Beetles Ltd., 1986. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Tam grateful to Chris Beetles for his unfailing kindness and help. This article could not have been writen without him. He has also provided all the transparencies and the pictures are reproduced with his kind permission.

167

INDEX

OF PLACES AND PEOPLE Addiscombe Military Academy, 18, 19 Afghanistan, 148, 150 ‘Agra, 64, 153, 154 155, 156, 157-58, 162, 165 Alaknanda river, 122-23, 124 Allahabad, 143 Allan and Ferguson, 138 ‘Amber, 139 Anupshahr, 49 Amott, Archibald, 28, 29 Atkinson, James, 87, 100 Barron, Richard, 130, 131. 133 Barton, Ezekiel, 25, 27-28 Benares, 78, 79, 100, 102-05, 149, 159, 160-61, 162-66 Bengal, 68-69, 71-78, 80, 82, 90, 91, 99 Botfield, Beriah, 108 Bihar Hills, 100 Bodh Gaya, 82, 95, 100, 101 Bombay, 8, 11, 133, 134 Bowles, John, 10, 11 Bowles, Thomas, 11 Brittridge, Richard, 44 Brown, Ford Maddox, 152 Browne, Sir Samuel, 148 Buckridge, Bainbrigge, 2 Burford, Robert, 98 Byers, James Broff, 24. 26 Caillaud, Major John, 34 Calcutta, 43-44, 46, 49, 64, 73. 78, 79, 82-83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 98, 106, 10 Canning, Lord, 133 Canning, Lady, 133, 143 ape Comorin, 125. 127 Cape of Good Hope, 6, 10, 14, 15 Caunter, Reverend Hobart, 64 Cavery river, 135 Chapman and Hall, 119 se, Richard, 47, 49 Chatra Chatri (Bihar), 92-93, 100 chidambaram, 31-32, 33. 36 Chini environs, 140, 141 Chinnery, George, 67-80. 82, 87, 99, 100, 105, 116, 118 Chittagong, 25, 27 Clarke, Tredway. 20 Colebrooke, Robert Hyde, 20-21, 22 onstable, John, 18, 152 Crockatt, James, 25, 26-27 Cussans, Thomas, 26-27, 28 Cuttack, 46 DOyly, Sir Charles, 64. 79, 81-106 DOyly, Charlotte, 81 D°Oyly, Eliza, 82, 100 DOyly, Sir John Hadley, 81, 82 Dacca, 68, 70, 81, 82, 87, 96, 97, 99, 101-02 Danckaerts, Hendrik, 2 Daniell, Thomas, 16, 44, 47. 49, 53-66, 73, 79. 116, 121 122-23, 124, 125, 127, 12K, 1a Daniell, William, 16, 49. 53-06, 73,79, R2, 116, 121 124, 125, 127. 128, 1a Day and Sons, 137, 138, Lal, 143 Day, William, 137. 148 Delhi, b43, be Dickinson & Co., Lond n, 89, 91

East India House, London, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-7, 10, 20, 32, 35, 36, 43, 46, 141 Edward VII (Prince of Wales), 137, 146 Farington, George, 43 Farington, Joseph, 44 Fayram, John, 18 Fielding, Copley, 18 Fielding, Theodore Henry A., 18, 113, 114, 115, 118, Fletcher, Sir Robert, 40, 41 Forrest, Charles Ramus, 18 Fort St George (Madras), 7,9, 10, 12-13, 46, 47, 49 Fort William (Calcutta), 8, 11-12 Foundling Hospital, London, 6, 10 Fraser, Edward Satchwell, 108 Fraser. James Baillie, 79, 107-20, 121, 126, 128-30, 133, 136 Fraser, William, 107, 108, 128 Ganges, 20, 53, 56. 7, 58, 59, 60, 94, 100,

160-61, 163, 164 Gaur, 20, 22 Gaya, 82, 90, 101 Gilpin, William, 56, 58, 61, 99 Girtin, Thomas, 68 Gonzales, Don'Manuel, 5 Goodwin, Albert, 151-66 Goodwin, Samuel and Rosetta, 151 Gough, Richard, 31, 33, 36, 38, 39. 46 Grose, John Henry, 11 Gwalior, 49

Hajipur. 84, 90 Haliyal, 23, 26 Hall, Vince, 151 Hamilton and Trail, Messrs, 44 Harris, John, 13, 15 Hastings, Marian, 82 Hastings, Warren, 54, 81, 82, 83, 87 Havell, Robert Junion), 109, 112, 113, 116, 118, 119, 131, 133 Havell, Robert (Senior), 109, 116, 118, 126, 128, 129 Havell, William, 116, 133 Hayley, William, 64 Heber, Bishop Reginald, 81, 100 Hickey, William, 26, 82 Himalayas, 28, 29, 30, 107, 108, 109, 112, 116, 118. 121, 122-23, 124, 126, 128-30, 132, 133, 136, 144 Hodges, William, 16, 20, 32, 44, 49, 53-66, 79 Hodgson, John, 27 Hogarth, William, 5, 11, 33 Holland, Henry, 7 Home, Robert, 125, 127, 130. 133 Hooghly river, 11, 71, 83. 87 Hughes, Arthur, 151, 152 Humphry, Ozias, 79 Hunt, William Holman, 151, 155 Jacobsen, Theodore, 5. 10 Jahngira,94, 100 Jalakibad environs, 145, 148 James, John, 5 Thelum river. 132, 133 Johnson, John, 23, 26 Jumna river, 128, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157-58, 162 Jumnotei, 126, 128

INDEX

Jupp, Richard, 7 Karle, 24, 26 Kashmir, 132, 133 Kirkall, Elisha, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 Lambert, George, 1-16, 32 Landseer, George, 132, 133 Landseer, John, 81, 87, 97, 99, 102 Lawrence, Thomas, 68 Lear, Edward, 78-80, 134-36 Leathant, James, 152 Le Mesurier, John, 19 Longstaff, Dr G.B., 157 Love, H. D., 13 Lucknow, 25, 27 Lysaght, Patrick, 30 Macartney, Lord, 44 Macnabb, James Munro and Jean Mary, 99-102 Madras, 67, 68, 69. 70 Madura, 35-36, 37, 43. 44, 46 Madura environs, 42 Matheran, 121, 134 Mathura, 49, 149 McClary, J. 43 Minto, Lord, 99 Morland, George, 69 Muhammad Alt Khan (Nawab of Arcot), 36 Mysore, 127 Nilgiris, 121, 130, 131, 133 Norgate, Edward, 1 Ootacamund, 130, 131, 133, 134 Orme, Edward, 49, 81 ‘Onme, Robert, 39, 40, 41, 43 Onme, William, 49 Patna, 81, 82, 84, 87, 90, 91, 99 Periyar Pass, 26-27, 28 Pigot, Lord, 41 Postans, Thomas, 17 Prinsep. Thomas, 18 Prinsep, Valentine (Val), 78, 80, 164 Prinsep, William, 18, 81, 102 Purwar river, 23 Rajmahal, 53-66 Rajmahal Hills, 60, 61 Ramgiri, 125, 127 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 68 Roberts, David, 137, 141 Roberts, Emma, 17 Rodwell and Martin, Messrs, 128 Roorkee, 146, 147 Rowlandson, Thomas, 67 Ruskin, John, 152, 153, 15% Russell, Sir Henry, 68 Russell, William, 137 Rysbrack, John Michael, 4, 7 Sanchi, 142, 144 Sandby, Paul, 18, 43 Sandys, Joseph, 44 Sasaram, 34, 45

Schetky, John Christian, 18 Scott, Samuel, 1-16, 32 Serampore, 68, 69, 72 Seringapatam, 21, 22 Severn, Arthur, 152 Shepherd, Thomas Hosmer, 6, 7 Shivagiri, 125, 127 Simla, 78, 121, 135 Simla environs, 140, 141 Simpson, Ann Penelope, 150 ‘Simpson, Maria Eliza (née Burt), 148 Simpson, William, 133, 136, 137-50 Smit, Amouldt, 15 Smith, General Joseph, 40 Srinagar, Garhwal, 122-23, 124 Srinagar, Kashmir, 132, 133 Srirangam, 35, 36, 38, 39, 135 St Helena, 6, 14, 15-16 Studdert, Thomas, 20 Surat environs, 28, 29 Sydenham, Thomas, 21, 22, 23 Tanjore, 44, 46 Tellicherry, 9, 13, 15 ‘Temple, Robert, 30 ‘Teppykulam, 35. 37 Tipu Sultan, 21, 23 Trichinopoly. 20, 21, 35, 36, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 135 Turmer, J.M.W, 68, 153, 155, 158

Valentia, Lord, 64 Vandergucht, Gerard, 11, 13 Vellore, 35, 40-41, 46 Vertue, George, 3, 7, 10 Viralimalai, 35, 38, 41, 44 Vizagapatam, 43, 46 Wale, Samuel, 3 Ward, Elizabeth (née Browne), 40, 47 Ward, Francis Swain, 20, 21, 31-52 Wellesley, Lord, 82, 83 Wells, William Frederick, 18 Western Ghats, 134 Wheatley, Francis, 69 White, George Francis, 88, 89, 98, 102, 105 Williams& Rankin, Messrs, 43 Wilson, Richard, 38, 99, 100 Wonnacott, Emily, 28 Wonnacott, William, 28, 29, 30 Wood, William Gunion, 79

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