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Previous posts on the subject of late Mughal or Delhi miniature paintings on ivory have dealt with portraits, with which the Visual Arts collection is well endowed. Not so well represented in the earlier collection are topographical paintings on ivory, so it was especially gratifying to be able to acquire two superb examples of the genre during my time as Curator of Visual Arts.


A view of the Qutb Minar from the east. By the Delhi artist, Ismail Khan, 1860-65. Water-colour on ivory: oval, 175 x 140 mm, within a gilt frame, and framed in a velvet-lined case, 34 by 30 cm. Engraved on a gilt strip inside frame: The Khutub Minar Delhi. Ismail Kahn. Royal Painter (British Library, Add.Or.4692)

A view by Ismail Khan of the Qutb Minar from the east is especially rich in topographical details. The tower was begun by Qutb al-Din Aybak in 1193 as a minaret to his adjacent mosque and as sign of his victory over Prithviraj Chauhan, the Hindu king of Delhi and Ajmer. Three more storeys were added by his son-in-law and successor Iltutmish. The topmost storey was struck by lightning in 1368 and the repairs by Firoz Shah Tughluq divided that storey into two and partly faced them in marble. The screen of the Quwwat al-Islam mosque also built by the first two monarchs stretches across the background. In front of the central arch of the mosque screen is the famous Iron Pillar, a 4th-century wonder of Gupta-period metallurgy, brought from elsewhere and placed in this site most probably by one of the previous Hindu rulers. On the left is the octagonal Mughal tomb of Adham Khan built in 1562 in the style of the previous Lodhi dynasty. Adham Khan (d. 1562) was the son of Akbar’s wet-nurse Maham Anga and killed on his orders after he assassinated Akbar’s general Ataga Khan. Despite his transgressions, Akbar built him this lavish tomb, which is now surrounded by the buildings of Mehrauli. Nearer is the gateway known as the Alai Darwaza built by Ala al-Din Khilji in 1311 along with part of his colonnade of re-used temple pillars in his bid to double the size of the mosque. In the foreground is Major Robert Smith’s re-sited cupola that crowned the top of the Minar in his repairs to earlier damage in 1828 and taken down and re-sited here in 1847. It was moved again in 1914 to a garden south-east of the Minar.

A letter accompanying the painting dated 21 September 1881 records the gift of the painting to Arthur Tite by the original purchaser D.A. Traill Christie, both men having worked for the Bengal Central Railway in India:

Meantime I send herewith for your acceptance the Indian miniature I spoke of the framing of which was delayed in consequence of my own exigeances (sic) & which I think you will like. It is a genuine work of Ismail Khan’s bought by myself from Delhi in 1865 and has been pronounced by several connoisseurs one of the finest examples of the art. Its Eastern origin & associations will be an appropriate souvenir to recall to you the establishment of the Bengal Central.

Ismail Khan was one of the famous artists of Delhi in the second half of the 19th century. Val Prinsep, who visited India in 1876-7, wrote in his journal (Prinsep 1879, p. 47):

Today I have received visits from the artists of Delhi: they are three in number, and each appears to have an atelier of pupils. The best is one Ismael Khan. Their manual dexterity is most surprising. Of course, what they do is entirely traditional. They work from photographs, and never by any chance from nature. Ismael Khan showed me what his father had done before photography came into vogue, and really a portrait of Sir C. Napier was wonderfully like, though without an atom of chic or artistic rendering. I pointed out to the old man certain faults - and glaring ones - of perspective, and he has promised to do me a view of the Golden Temple without any faults. “These”, he said, pointing to his miniatures, “are done for the sahibs who do not understand. I know they are wrong, but what does it matter? No one cares. But I will show you that I can do better.” This better miniature I never received; perhaps my friend Ismael found it not so easy to do a perfect picture

Lockwood Kipling suggests in the Delhi Gazetteer of 1883 that photographs were photographically enlarged or diminished to the right size, before having their outlines traced on transparent talc: ‘this tracing is then retraced in the reverse side of the talc with transfer ink and transferred to a thin sheet of ivory, the features, etc., are then touched up and finally shaded and coloured. ... As the whole work is done with water-colour any part can be washed out and redone.’ (Archer and Archer 1955, pp. 70-71)

Left: Sir Charles James Napier. Attributed to Ghulam Husayn Khan, c. 1850, after Comte Hippolyte Caïs de Pierlas. Watercolour on ivory, 55 by 45 mm (British Library, Add.Or.5638)   Right: Sir Charles James Napier. By Richard James Lane, after Comte Hippolyte Caïs de Pierlas. Lithograph, 1849. 203 by 163 mm (National Portrait Gallery NPG D21721)

A recently acquired portrait miniature of Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) gives visual expression to Prinsep’s opinion. Napier was Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army famous for his capture of Sind in 1843 (‘peccavi’ he is supposed to have telegraphed to Calcutta). He left India in 1847 but returned as Commander in Chief in 1849. The face is fine, but the shoulders are too close together and the decorations are worn too high up on the chest. He is wearing the star and sash of a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GBC) conferred in 1843 and the Sind Campaign Medal of that same year, as well as other medals connected with his earlier career in the Peninsular War. The long forked beard has gone awry, since the artist is dependent not on a photograph, as Prinsep suggests, but on a lithographic print.

The original artist of the portrait, Caïs de Pierlas, was a plantsman and amateur artist based in Nice and he seems to have met Napier in 1848 - the inscription states that the original drawing was done in that year. An oil painting by him of Napier on a rearing horse meant to be at the Battle of Miani in 1843 appeared at Christie’s South Kensington on 29 September 2011, lot 239. The details of the beard are not clear in the lithographic portrait nor are there any medals, but the latter must have been copied from other prints. The artist of our miniature is almost certainly Ghulam Husayn Khan, who painted both in oils and in watercolour on ivory in the mid-century, although Ismail Khan is thought to be the son of the topographical artist Mazhar ‘Ali Khan (see below).

The Qutb Minar. Albumen print by Samuel Bourne, mid-1860s (British Library, Photo 11(68))

At first sight Ismail Khan’s view reproduces the photographs of the Qutb Minar taken by John Murray and by Robert and Harriet Tytler in 1858 and by Samuel Bourne in the 1860s. All three images are almost identical in composition: reproduced above is the Bourne version. Only one structure would have allowed this viewpoint at that time, the so-called Garhgaj (literally ‘elephant-house’), near the Mughal caravanserai to the east of the Qutb enclosure, a stepped pyramidal structure constructed by Sir Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe when Agent at the Delhi Court, who had converted the nearby Mughal tomb of Adham Khan’s brother, Muhammad Quli Khan, into a summer retreat. All 19th century photographs of the Qutb Minar taken from this point show a tangle of trees intervening across the foreground, making a picturesque view, but not appealing much to an artist trained in the Mughal tradition. Ismail Khan has therefore opened up the foreground, by reducing the size of the trees, thus allowing him to incorporate part of the southern colonnade of ‘Ala’ al-Din’s early 14th century extension to the mosque enclosure to the east of his gateway, as well as a pathway coming in from the viewer’s left; both innovations increase the sense of depth in the painting, as well as conforming to the higher viewpoint beloved of Indian artists.

Ismail Khan must not, however, be supposed to have been so radical an innovator that he actually stood on the Garhgaj to record the view. The lower part of the painting is based on views by Delhi artists of the 1840s, first taken for Syed Ahmed Khan’s publication on the monuments of Delhi Asar al-Sanadid, published with woodcut illustrations in 1847. The woodcut of the Qutb Minar between pp. 128-9 is of this same view, complete with the broad path and the colonnade; the latter also appear in two large water-colours, one in the Visual Arts collections (Add.Or.3100, Archer 1972, no. 162) and another in the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava’s collection (reproduced Welch 1978, no. 51). While making use of both sources, the early photograph for the upper part of the painting and the earlier Indian artists’ views for the foreground, Ismail Khan has imposed his own sense of proportion and landscape.

The second topographical painting on ivory shows a view of the Mughal city of Shahjahanabad or Delhi from the north-west with the River Yamuna beyond.


Delhi from the north-west. Attributed to Mazhar ‘Ali Khan, c. 1845. Water-colour and body-colour on ivory; 105 by 210 mm (British Library, Add.Or.5476)

The view is taken from the Ridge and encompasses the northern and eastern walls of the city: St. James’s Church (built by Col. James Skinner and consecrated 1836), Shah Jahan’s Red Fort itself (finished 1648) and the older fort of Salimgarh (built 1545-54) beside it, and Shah Jahan’s Jami‘ Masjid (built 1650-56) are prominent. Lesser mosques visible include the Akbarabadi Masjid (to the right of the Fort, demolished in 1858) and the Fatehpuri Masjid (far right), both built by two of Shah Jahan’s wives.

Outside the walls along the river, there are seen the back views of the Qudsia Bagh (a garden built by Qudsia Begum c. 1748) and two British structures: Metcalfe House and Ludlow Castle on the extreme left, which were the private residence and the official home of the Agent and Delhi Commissioner Sir Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe from 1835-53. For details of these buildings, see Losty 2012, figs. 2 and 16. The tents visible on the tract outside the north wall are those of the military cantonment. Perspective is most skilfully handled in the recession of the foreground dotted with trees, rocks and animals. A second version of this view also on ivory is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Dalrymple and Sharma 2012, no. 71). 


Sir Thomas Metcalfe's ‘Delhi Book’ illustrating Delhi from the north-west. Attributed to the studio of Mazhar ‘Ali Khan, c. 1842-44. Water-colour on paper. Folio size: 25 by 19 cm; painting 8 by 13 cm (British Library, Add.Or.5475, f. 11v, detail)

A similar view of Delhi from further back along the Ridge is placed in the ‘Delhi Book’ of Sir Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe, about which Metcalfe complains: ‘The artist in his endeavour to do much has been more minute than clear in his delineation.’ The two versions on ivory seem a riposte by Mazhar ‘Ali Khan himself, availing himself of the minute and delicate brushstrokes possible on this medium. He was the major topographical artist in late Mughal Delhi, painting many of the topographical views in Metcalfe’s ‘Delhi Book’ and also the great panorama of the city of 1846 (Add.Or.4126, see Losty 2012). While there is no direct evidence that Metcalfe was the patron of this view, any more than there is for the panorama, since both begin their views with Metcalfe House on the left it would seem very possible.

Further reading:

M. Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library, 1972
M and W.G. Archer, Indian Painting for the British 1770-1880, London, 1955
Dalrymple and Y. Sharma, Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, Asia Society, New York, 2012
J.P. Losty, Delhi 360°: Mazhar Ali Khan’s View from the Lahore Gate, Lustre Press Roli Books, New Delhi, 2012
Prinsep, Imperial India: an Artist’s Journals, London, 1879
Y.D. Sharma, Delhi and its Neighbourhood, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, 1974
S.C. Welch, Room for Wonder, New York, 1978

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)

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A recently acquired group of miniatures painted on ivory and laid down on paper supports with identifying inscriptions,  still mostly with their original glass, is of considerable interest. Such items were increasingly the stock products of the tourist trade in Delhi in the later nineteenth century, but the inscriptions of this particular group suggested that they must have been made before 1850 and in Lahore or Amritsar rather than Delhi, the usual production centre for such items. The portraits include various Maharajas of the Punjab from 1839-49 with other rulers. They were presumably bought and pasted down onto sheets of paper in order to be sent off to Britain for the enlightenment of friends or relations at home, so that they could put a face to the names that occupied so much of the British press in the 1840s with the doings of the Lahore court and the two Sikh Wars, which ended in the annexation of the Punjab in 1849. Several of the inscriptions are unfortunately in error.

    
Inscribed: Now Nihal Sing successor to Rangeet Sing [i.e. Kharak Singh]; Maharajah of Lahore Ranjeet Sing; Bahadoor Shaw present King of Delhi [i.e. Akbar II]  (British Library, Add.Or.5680-82) 

The miniatures are arranged in four groups. Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Lahore (r. 1799-1839) is given primacy of place in the first group with the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1838-58) to his right and Ranjit Singh’s son Kharak Singh (r. 1839-40) to his left. The inscriber has wrongly identified the latter as Nau Nihal Singh (r. 1840), who was the son and successor of Maharaja Kharak Singh (see next). He was still only aged nineteen when he was killed on returning from his father’s obsequies by masonry falling from an arch, and the portrait is of his father Kharak Singh. For his portrait around 1840 showing him with just a chin beard, see Archer 1966, pl. 35. The inscribed ‘present King of Delhi’ (as the British called the Emperor) dates paintings and inscriptions to at least before 1858. The inscriber seems mistaken here also, since the portrait is surely of Bahadur Shah’s father Akbar II (r. 1806-37) (see Dalrymple and Sharma 2012, nos. 30, 32-36). 

Inscribed: Dhuleep Sing present Ruler of Lahore; Kurruck Sing successor to Now Nihal Sing of Lahore; Kurrum Sing Rajah of Putteala [i.e. Kharak Singh] (British Library, Add.Or.5683-85) 

The second group has again a central portrait, that of Maharaja Kharak Singh (r. 1839-40), son and successor of Ranjit Singh, who died, it was rumoured, of poison. He has a very distinctive long pointed black beard. The inscriber has muddled Kharak Singh and his son Nau Nihal Singh. The latter was succeeded by Maharaja Sher Singh (r. 1840-43), another son of Ranjit Singh, who is represented later in the portraits, see below. Kharak Singh’s successor was Maharaja Dalip Singh (r. 1843-49), the youngest son of Ranjit Singh, identified with an inscription ‘the present Ruler of Lahore’ which firmly dates the whole group to before 1849. The other portrait in this group purports to be Maharaja Karam Singh of Patiala (r. 1813-45), ruler of one of the Cis-Sutlej states outside Ranjit Singh’s empire and allied to British India, but this portrait does not resemble him (for his portrait, see Stronge 1999, no. 188 and Falk and Archer 1981, no. 553). Again the long pointed black beard suggests Kharak Singh as in Add.Or.5680 above.


Inscribed: Rajah of Nepaul; Sumroo Begum; Mirza Zanghir 3 son King of Delhi [i.e. Maharaja Sher Singh]; Dost Mahomet (British Library, Add.Or.5686-89) 

Four of the remaining ivories are meant to be of local notables. These are the Maharaja of Nepal, who would seem to be the teenage Maharaja Surendra Bir Bikram Shah (b. 1829, r. 1847-81). Next is the Begum Samru of Sardhana (d. 1836) who ruled her own jagir near Meerut east of Delhi, one of the most redoubtable characters of early 19^th century India. Next, a portrait labelled as Mirza Jahangir, the third and favourite son of the Emperor Akbar II, who died in confinement in Allahabad in 1821, cannot be him since this figure is wearing a Sikh type of turban. In fact he is almost certainly the missing Maharaja Sher Singh of Lahore (r. 1841-43), identified by comparison with other portraits by Sikh artists as well as his well-known portraits by both Emily Eden and the Austrian artist T.A. Schoefft (for his portraits by Indian artists, see Archer 1966, pls. 92, 104). Finally in this group is Dost Muhammad, the Amir of Afghanistan (r. 1825-39, and again 1845-63). Dost Muhammad repeatedly fought with the Sikhs in his first reign over the disputed border territory of Peshawar, but then allied himself with them in the second period of his reign before the final annexation. He is often depicted in other groupings of Sikh notables.

The various dates of rulers presented above suggest that the grouping of the portraits was done some time between 1847 and 1849. After the final annexation of the Punjab in 1849, artists in both Lahore and Amritsar produced many sets of portraits on ivory of Sikh rulers and notables in the period of their greatness. The British Library already has five such sets (Archer 1969, nos. 190-194), including one set from the 1850s that is almost certainly among the earliest known (Stronge 1999, no. 20), but this new set is definitely from the late 1840s. It must have been put together put together by a British officer probably in the British Residency in Lahore that was established by the Treaty of Bhairowal in 1846, and sent back home as suggested above for the enlightenment of his friends.

While the arrangement of the first two groups of three portraits is perhaps arbitrary, nonetheless the central large portrait flanked by two smaller ones closely resembles that of the jewels of bazubands, the jewelled armbands worn by the elite as can be seen in the larger portrait of Kharak Singh above (Add.Or.5684). Whereas portraits on ivory by Delhi artists were normally individual commissions, and even when in sets such as of the Mughal emperors were individually framed, the idea behind these groupings of Sikh notables seems to have been to have them mounted up in a frame, as are indeed all those in the British Library which are enclosed in 19^th century frames (see Stronge 1999, no. 20).

Inscribed: [Ko]otub Minar Church at Delhi [Bui]ldings… at Delhi (British Library Add.Or.5691-94) 

The set ends (apart from one unidentified ruler, Add.Or.5690) rather oddly perhaps with three pictures on ivory of monuments of Delhi, all of them mounted up on the same sort of paper and with inscriptions in the same handwriting. In the middle is what is meant to be the church at Delhi, the church of St. James, built by Col. James Skinner near the Kashmir Gate and consecrated in 1836. It does however look rather more like a Mughal tomb such as that of Salim Chishti at Fatehpur Sikri and clearly the artist did not have a very good model for his depiction, although the dome and the parapet are passable. The heavy eave and the Mughal jalis or screens should not be there, but the tomb of William Fraser of 1836 seems to be present in front of the church.

Pictures on ivory of monuments had a different purpose from portraits, since often at this period they were mounted as brooches. Indeed one of the earliest such examples is a picture of the gateway of the Taj Mahal mounted up in a gold brooch with an inscription saying that it was sent from India by Lady Sale in 1840 (private collection). Later such pictures were mounted up into ivory boxes or else, as small circles or ovals, into cufflinks or shirt studs. Apart from brooches, they could also, we now learn from this set, be turned into earrings, since it has two pictures of the Qutb Minar, the famous 12/13^th century tower in old Delhi, painted on shapes that are surely destined to be long drop earrings, when encased in gold. Below the tower are painted little round pictures of the Taj Mahal in Agra on one and what appears to be the tomb of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq on the other. An additional small circular painting of the Quwwat al-Islam mosque and the Qutb Minar may indeed have been for one of the roundels covering the ear lobe from which such drop earrings normally hung in the Victorian era. The roundel is actually loose but is positioned in the above image as if this was indeed the case.

The earring paintings can be dated by the presence of the cupola in Mughal style added to the top of the Qutb Minar during a restoration in 1828 by Major Robert Smith of the Bengal Engineers, which was removed in 1848. Although artists in Lahore or Amritsar might not necessarily have known this, they liked to be up to date with their depictions, so this is yet another reason to date the set to the late 1840s.

Although there is no direct evidence that this group of miniatures in ivory was painted in the Punjab, their subjects of local interest to the Punjab and their somewhat unsophisticated technique would certainly suggest that this was so. Sikh artists do not seem to have attempted to paint on ivory any earlier. Such work when done by Delhi artists is more refined and polished, and this will be the subject of a second blog.

References:

Archer, M., Company Drawings in the India Office Library, HMSO, London, 1972
Archer, W.G., Painting of the Sikhs, HMSO, London, 1966
Dalrymple, W., and Sharma, Y., Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, Asia Society, New York, 2012
Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1981
Stronge, S., ed., The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, V & A, London, 1999

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)

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In 1974 the auction house Sotheby’s in London sold two albums of drawings by an otherwise unknown artist called Sita Ram. These albums were respectively entitled Views by Seeta Ram from Moorsheedabad to Patna. Vol. I and Views by Seeta Ram from Secundra to Agra. Vol. IX. Each album contained 23 large watercolours of topographical views of the scenery and monuments of the relevant part of India. Both were soon dispersed to collectors all over the world. Apart from the clear inference that the albums were part of a much larger set commissioned by a wealthy British traveller, there was no clue to their provenance, patronage or date.


The famous cannon known as the Great Gun at Agra. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4311)

One painting from the dispersed vol. IX, 'the Great Gun of Agra', was acquired for the British Library in 1986 and I subsequently published it without knowing the real provenance (Losty 1989). Other drawings from these albums were acquired by many prominent collectors of Indian paintings, including Ed Binney III , S.C. Welch, Krishna Riboud and Paul Walter. Many have been published over the years in various exhibition catalogues.

These are large watercolours (averaging 40 by 60 cm) by an Indian artist trained in the contemporary Murshidabad school, but no doubt working in Calcutta round about 1810-15. Sita Ram has clearly absorbed considerable influence from the English watercolourists and engravers in aquatints such as William Hodges and Thomas and William Daniell, as well as somewhat later artists in India such as George Chinnery. Despite the influences, this artist is able to compose picturesque and beautiful compositions in his own right as in this case, concentrating rather like Chinnery on a minor antiquity and relegating the Taj Mahal to the distance along the River Jumna where it shimmers through the heat haze. Many of these paintings also promised to be of great interest in the discovery of India’s past before the advent of photography and the Archaeological Survey. In the case of the painting above, for instance, the area was totally destroyed by the blowing up of the cannon in 1833 and the later building of the railway bridge across the Jumna past the north wall of the Agra Fort.

Admirers of later Indian painting could only hope that the missing volumes would one day turn up. This duly happened in 1995, when the British Library was offered and was able to acquire the remaining albums by Sita Ram (numbered II-VIII and X). They formed part of the collection of albums of drawings formed in India by the Marquess of Hastings, the Governor-General of Bengal 1813-23. The ten albums by Sita Ram illustrate Lord and Lady Hastings’ journey from Calcutta to Delhi and back in 1814-15. There were in all 25 albums of drawings in the collection, by Indian, Chinese and British artists. They had been for the last 150 years in the collection of the Marquis of Bute in Scotland, and indeed hitherto unknown and unsuspected. Hastings then turned out to be Sita Ram’s patron and the artist’s paintings of the voyage could be firmly dated 1814-15. This journey had been long known of through the publication in 1858 of Lord Hastings’ journal, edited by his daughter the Marchioness of Bute, who as a child had accompanied her parents on this grand voyage (Hastings 1858) and who had inherited all her father’s papers and albums.

The 10 albums each with 23 drawings form a grand diorama of north India, as if Hastings had set out to surpass the 144 aquatints of the Daniells’ Oriental Scenery. It is 20 years since the Library acquired these albums and finally it has been possible to publish them in a fitting manner with the enthusiastic cooperation of Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books in Delhi (Losty 2015). An introduction deals with the patron Lord Hastings and Sita Ram as an artist, but the meat of the book is the publication of 160 of the drawings taken on the voyage and of an abbreviated version of Hastings’ journal, which sheds so much light on the paintings. The two obviously go hand in hand, though Hastings refers only occasionally to the ‘Bengal draftsman’ who accompanied them.

In order to inspect the British possessions in India and to meet Indian rulers and notables, and in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief to keep a closer eye on the current war with Nepal, Hastings made a journey upcountry from Calcutta to the Punjab and back. The party embarked on 28 June 1814 at Barrackpore in a flotilla of no less than 220 boats. Hastings was accompanied by his wife and small children, by his secretaries and A.D.C.s, and no doubt by their wives and children, by 150 sepoys of the Governor-General’s Bodyguard, and by a battalion from the Bengal Army. They all would have needed boats for their luggage and equipment, for their horses, for their food and stores and floating kitchens. They needed to set off in the adverse conditions at the height of the monsoon, as only then was the water debouching from the Ganges into the Hooghly high enough for the boats to pass over the bar at Suti.


The flotilla on the River Ganges. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4711)     

The flotilla conveyed them up the river Hooghly and into the main stream of the Ganges, past Patna, Benares and Allahabad as far as Cawnpore. Hastings provides graphic descriptions of the difficulties encountered on the river of fighting the adverse winds and the current, of the incessant necessity for ‘tracking’, i.e. the boatmen landing and pulling the boats upriver, and of the tedium when they had to wait for changes in the wind to get round promontories.


Temples at Rajghat, Benares. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4718)

Some of the paintings illustrating the river journey are among the most tranquil and beautiful creations in Indian painting.


Lord Hastings and Nawab Ghazi al-Din enter Lucknow in state. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4749)

At Cawnpore they disembarked from their boats and travelled overland to Lucknow. One of the principals purposes of the journey was for Hastings to meet the new Nawab Vizier Ghazi al-Din Haidar. Hastings tells us later that no less than 10,000 people were in the party at this time. The principal members of the party travelled by elephant, camel, horseback, palanquin and all the other means of transport employed in early nineteenth century India, whereas everyone else simply had to march. They moved at the rate of about ten miles a day (it took five days to cover the 50 miles between Cawnpore and Lucknow!), starting off before daybreak and reaching their next encampment before it became too hot. By having two complete sets of tents the second set was always available for the principal travellers when they arrived at the next encampment for breakfast. There they rested during the hear of the day, met the local people both British and Indian, and Hastings also could get on with the day-to-day tasks of governing India.


The travellers marching past the mountains at Kashipur. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15. British Library (Add.Or.4775)

From Lucknow, the party then marched north-westwards parallel to the Himalayas, passing to the north of Delhi up to Haridwar where the Ganges debouches onto the plains.


The ghats at Haridwar. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4783)

They then turned south into the Punjab and approached Delhi from the west through Haryana. In the event, questions of protocol prevented Hastings from meeting the Mughal emperor Akbar II, or King of Delhi as the British referred to him at this time, although Lady Hastings went to Delhi as a sightseer, taking Sita Ram with her.


Lady Hastings visiting the Kalan Masjid in Delhi. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1815 (British Library, Add.Or.4817)

Lord Hastings busied himself inspecting the garrison at Meerut before meeting up with his wife’s party again south of Delhi. The travellers turned south towards Agra, admiring the great Mughal monuments there and at Sikandra and Fatehpur Sikri, then marched to the British military station of Fatehgarh near Farrukhabad on the Ganges. There they passed the hot weather of 1815 waiting for the monsoon rains to swell the river so that they could pass over the bar at Suti and down the Hooghly to Calcutta. Sita Ram must have passed these months finishing off his watercolours and preparing them for pasting into the albums. The Hastings’ children became ill at this time and when the rains had swelled the river but the monsoon gales had abated, they embarked on their boats and sailed rapidly downstream to Calcutta where they arrived on 9 October 1815. The whole journey took seventeen months. Lady Hastings took the children home to England but later returned to be with her husband.


The Firoz Shah Minar at Gaur and a Palash tree. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1817 (British Library, Add.Or.4888)

Sita Ram continued to work for Hastings.   Another two albums of drawings also by Sita Ram contain views in Bengal taken on subsequent tours, one during a sporting expedition to northern Bengal in 1817, and the other during a convalescent tour in the Rajmahal Hills in 1820-21. Sita Ram has matured even more as an artist by then and they contain some of his most beautiful works. With Hastings’ departure from India in 1823, however, Sita Ram disappears from the record and no further work is known from his hand.

Further reading:

Hastings, 1st Marquess of, The Private Journal of the Marquess of Hastings, K.G., ed. by the Marchioness of Bute, London, 1858
Losty, J.P., ‘The Great Gun at Agra’, British Library Journal, v.15, 1989, pp. 35-58
Losty, J.P., Sita Ram: Picturesque Views of India – Lord Hastings’s Journey from Calcutta to the Punjab, 1814-15, Roli Books, New Delhi, 2015 (also Sita Ram’s Painted Views of India, Thames & Hudson, London, 2015)

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)

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'White Mughal' William Fullerton of Rosemount

Although separated by land and sea, the history of relations between Europe and Ethiopia goes back to early antiquity. The earliest account of Ethiopia in the West can be found in the epic poems of Homer. However it was the popularity of the legend of the 12^th century Christian king, Presbyter Johannes (Prester John) in medieval Europe that revived Ethiopia in the European imagination. From the 12th century onwards the relationship between Europe  and Ethiopia was characterized by a mutual awareness of the vital role that each could play in checking and containing the spread of Islam. This has been documented both by Europeans and to some extent Ethiopians, mostly in printed publications, through collections of artefacts, and in private journals. Manuscript accounts have provided the main sources for much meticulous historical research, however the body of prints, photographs and paintings by European visitors have not had the same attention.

One of the finest artists to visit Ethiopia in early nineteenth century was the Egyptologist Henry Salt (14 June 1780 – 30 October 1827). Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Salt studied Classics and later went to London to join he Royal Academy Antique School.

Obelisk at Axum (Abyssinia), September or October 1803, pen-and-ink drawing by Henry Salt, 1803 (British Library WD1315)

A meeting with George Annesley, 2nd Earl of Mountnorris resulted in Salt being appointed secretary and draughtsman to Viscount Valentia. Salt accompanied the Earl to India and the Red Sea area. While there, he also visited the Ethiopian highlands for the first time, including the ancient city of Aksum in 1805. Salt’s drawings were later published in Valentia's Voyages and Travels to India, in 1809.

Salt returned to Ethiopia in 1810 on the first official mission from Great Britain to establish trade and diplomatic links. The aim of the mission was to conclude an alliance with Abyssinia, and obtain a port on the Red Sea in case France secured Egypt by dividing up the Turkish Empire with Russia.^[1]

Salt’s interest in Egyptology began in 1815, when he was appointed British consul-general in Cairo. However even before working in Cairo, during his time in Ethiopia, he had conducted an extensive survey of early Ethiopic and Greek inscriptions found in Aksum.

Ethiopic inscription from Aksum (Mountnorris & Salt, p. 414)

The British Library’s Department of Visual Arts has a good collection of visual materials relating to Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Amongst these are drawings by Henry Salt which date from 1805 to 1810.  Salt produced a number of drawings illustrating scenes of the Ethiopian highlands. The sketches were annotated by Salt with details of colour recording people and buildings.  His drawings are similar to those of Thomas and William Daniel in terms of subject matter, composition, use of colour and aesthetic ideal of the time.

Henry Salt, Mountainous landscape, Mucculla (Abyssinia), 9 to 10 September 1805 (British Library WD1311)

Salt's drawings of the Ethiopian highlands demonstrate the breadth of his work and his attention to detail. Most were reprinted by the Ethiopian Tourist Commission in the early 1970s.

Henry Salt, the town of Dixan on a hilltop (Abyssinia), July or November 1805, wash 1805 (British Library WD1310) 

Salt’s paintings of India have acquired monumental status, becoming a perpetual nostalgic reminder of the “British Raj”.  However his paintings of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) have not gained the consideration they merit. 

Further Reading:

Mountnorris, G. A., & Salt, H., Voyages and travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, in the years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806. London: W. Miller, 1809

Salt, H.,  A voyage to Abyssinia, and travels into the interior of that country, executed under the orders of the British Government, in the years 1809 and 1810: In which are included, an account of the Portguese settlements on the east coast of Africa, visited in the course of the voyage, a concise narrative of the late events in Arabia Felix, and some particulars respecting the aboriginal African tribes, extending from Mosambique to the borders of Egypt, together with vocabularies of their respectives languages. London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1814

Eyob Derillo, Asian and African Studies

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In a previous post, I looked at an important drawing of the Virgin of the Apocalypse that had been catalogued as Deccani c. 1640-60 by Falk and Archer (1981, no. 443) and argued that it was in fact Mughal from around 1600.  There are another nine drawings of Christian subjects from the Richard Johnson Collection described as mid-17^th century Deccani in the Falk and Archer catalogue (pp. 238-39), but on further examination it seemed harder and harder to justify describing some of them as Deccani rather than Mughal.  This is a difficult area for absolute certainty of attribution, given that we are dealing in most cases with later versions of earlier drawings.   Johnson’s postings are of no help: he was in Lucknow 1780-82 and in Hyderabad 1784-85, but Deccani paintings were freely available in Lucknow as well.  This blog will look at some more of these drawings, trying to disentangle the genuine Deccani from those that are in fact Mughal.

One of Johnson’s specific interests was in Mughal or Deccani paintings and drawings of Christian subjects, which were normally based on European engravings.  These were brought to Mughal India by the Jesuits in particular, who aimed to use such images to help in the conversion of the peoples of Asia.  Akbar’s and Jahangir’s artists painted over and copied such prints as aids in their quest for command of recession and volume and enlarged upon them in various ways without a care for the original iconography.  Although there do not seem to have been any missions sent from Goa to the relatively near Ahmadnagar or Bijapur courts, Christian prints undoubtedly found their way into the hands of these Deccani artists, as evidenced by two drawings in the Freer Gallery (Zebrowski 1983, nos. 83 and 146).  They are clearly different from Mughal treatments of Christian subjects, having a certain angularity and awkwardness about them offset by their calligraphic line or sumptuous colour, which seems typical of what to expect from such material.

Virgin and Child.  Mughal, 1620-30.  Wash drawing with added colour.  136 x 70 mm.  British Library, J. 6, 3. 

A drawing of a full-length statuesque Virgin carrying the Christ Child is catalogued by Falk and Archer as Deccani 1640-60, but the artist’s interest in naturalistic modelling of the drapery would seem to rule this out. The image is based ultimately on an engraving of the icon in the basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, such as one by Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri.   

Madonna del Popolo.  Engraving by Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri, 1560-1600.  British Museum, Ii,5.104.  © Trustees of the British Museum 

Since the icon like the engraving is only half length the artist has extended it down, perhaps basing his modelling of the draperies on a different image.  The Christ Child’s hand is raised more to touch his Mother’s face than in the print or the actual icon, where it is raised in benediction, but Mughal artists were not slavish copiers and were perfectly capable of adding extra pathos to the icon. The engraver’s modelling through the use of cross-hatching is replaced as usual in our version by a skillful use of wash.  The blue background and the green grass below were added to our drawing later in Lucknow where such additions to drawings or unfinished paintings were commonplace in order to cater to European collectors’ taste.

The Madonna del Popolo differs from the even more venerated icon called the Salus Populi Romani in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in that instead of the latter’s hieratic full face image, she had turned her face down towards the Child.  Several Mughal versions of the Salus Populi Romani as engraved by Wierix are known, including one in the St. Petersburg Album attributed to Manohar.   There seem to have been fewer versions made of our image, although another early 17^th century full length Mughal version also with the Virgin interacting with her son as in our drawing appeared at Sotheby’s 26 April 1995, lot 128 (verso), but with the Christ Child’s hand not raised so far up. 

Angels bowing down before a saint.  Mughal, 1630-40.  Wash drawing with added colour.  119 x 99 mm.  British Library, J.6, 4. 

A closely related image with simple wash modelling, again thought by Falk and Archer to be Deccani 1640-60, seems at first sight to be another image of Christian piety, but its origins are more complex.  Two angels are bowing down before a nimbate female figure carrying a book.  The kneeling angel has feathered limbs, the other hovers above the ground with bent legs.  This drawing does not seem to be based directly on an engraving, but rather on an allegorical drawing by the great Mughal artist Basawan from the 1580s.  In that drawing a winged angel bows down before a robed female figure carrying an ektara, a one-stringed musical instrument,and a bow (David and Soustiel 1986, pl. 1).  While one of his allegorical figures now in the Musée Guimet in Paris is based on the frontispiece to the Royal Polyglot Bible printed in Antwerp 1568-72, which was presented to Akbar in 1580 by the first Jesuit mission, Basawan freely adapted it, and also seems to have invented similar types of figures such as the originals of our figures and the next for which no European source has yet been found.  At some stage Basawan’s allegory was converted in the Mughal studio into a more conventional Christian subject.  The female figure has been given a halo and a book, and with her loose hair and in the absence of a veil, is presumably intended to be a saint such as St Catherine of Alexandria, one of whose symbols is a book.  As in the case of Madonna del Popolo above, background and landscape have been added in Lucknow.

An allegorical figure, perhaps intended for the penitent Magdalen.  Wash with colour.  Deccani , 1640-60.  135 by 93 mm.  British Library, J.14, 6. 

Another drawing, although closely based on an earlier Mughal allegorical study, appears this time actually to be Deccani. A robed female figure stands fervently praying upwards to the heavens in a landscape, with an altar on which are vessels and a book in front of her and a tall ewer behind her.  A sloping hillside with protruding trees closes the scene.  A very similar earlier Mughal version of this composition appeared at Sotheby’s London 2 November 1988, lot 109, with a similar but more developed landscape, attributed to Basawan 1585-90.  That figure’s hair was tied up in a chignon and a jewelled fillet with an aigrette placed round her hair as was usual with Basawan’s allegorical figures.  In our version our artist has loosened her hair so that it tumbles round her shoulders and placed a red cap sporting an aigrette jauntily on the back of her head.  Her visible ear is absolutely covered with jewelled ornaments.  The wash modelling of the draperies is somewhat perfunctory.  A certain awkwardness in the rendition of her face, the exaggeration of her curly locks streaming down her back and the over-the-top ear adornments suggests that this may indeed very well be Deccani from the mid-century.

The Last Supper.  Mughal, 1640-60.  Wash drawing with colour.  167 by 97 mm. British Library, J.6, 6 

Another slightly damaged drawing is based on a combination of prints including one of the Last Supper.  Jesus has just handed the piece of bread dipped in the dish in front of him to Judas who is standing on the right, thereby identifying Judas as he who would betray him.  The drawing shows some interesting variations, including a combination of sitting and standing disciples, from whatever European sources lie behind it. The disciples, rather less than twelve, are clothed in a mixture of Biblical and contemporary Portuguese costume.  The youthful long-haired John, often depicted leaning on Christ’s chest or shoulder in this scene, has been interpreted as a woman who is now seated on Christ’s right.  The scene is set in a courtyard surrounded by Renaissance arches capped by Mughal chajjas. Two women are at the edges of the composition, one kneeling with a document, the other raising a curtain.The disciples lean forward keen to understand the significance of what is going on.  Another almost identical, contemporary drawing was in one of Warren Hastings’s albums from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (Sotheby’s 27 November 1974, lot 812), there called Mughal mid-17^th century, and again there seems little reason to dispute this attribution for our drawing.  No print of the Last Supper seems to include dogs, but Mughal artists often add them to any scenes with Europeans regardless of their source.

 In the Johnson collection there are two almost identical drawings showing the Christ Child lying on the ground being adored by a kneeling Virgin Mary in a moonlit landscape.  Two angels stand in adoration to the side while others hurtle down through billowing clouds from the sky above bearing musical instruments, a book and symbols.  The scene is set in the open outside a hut under a rocky outcrop, while Indian hump-backed cattle and sheep inhabit the foreground, the former standing in a stream. No European engraving appears to be directly behind this drawing, although other versions are known, suggesting that the iconography was put together in India.

The Virgin worshipping the Christ Child with angels.  Deccani , 1640-60.  Wash drawing with gold.  182 by 128 mm.  British Library, J.6, 2.fc 

The two standing angels wear short tunics as in J.6, 4 above and have feathered limbs in addition to their wings, while the flying ones have long robes.  In the second version (J.6, 1) one of the standing angels wears a leaf skirt, as if he were a Bhil.  The flying angels’ hurtling progress is found again in a somewhat later Deccani page in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, from Nusrati’s Dakhni Urdu romance Gulshan-i ‘Ishq, in which fairies descend by night to take the sleeping prince Manohar to his beloved (Haidar and Sardar 2015, no. 173).  As with the penitent Magdalen discussed above, a Mughal version lies behind this composition, such as one in the Binney collection in the San Diego Museum (Binney 1973, no. 65).  This seems to be from the early Jahangiri period, judging by the old fashioned piled up rocks in the landscape, which are echoed in the later versions.  It lacks the two adoring angels with feathered limbs, while the angels hover statically in the sky with only their heads and wings visible. Another much closer version of this subject with similarly plummeting angels is in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, this time with the standing angels of our versions, who both have leaf skirts as well as feathered limbs (Arnold and Wilkinson 1936, pl. 82).   Both our drawings and the Dublin version obviously are following the Mughal model but augmenting it, certainly with the angels and also with what appear to be large numbers of birds in the sky (or possibly bats since it is night).  What marks these drawings out as Deccani is the highly stylized tree on the right, far removed from the naturalistic tree of the Binney version, so that the original attribution sees correct.

Further Reading:

Bailey, G.A., Counter Reformation Symbolism and Allegory in Mughal Painting, Ph. D. thesis, Harvard University, 1996

Binney, E., 3^rd, Indian Miniature Painting from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3^rd:  the Mughal and Deccani  Schools, Portland, 1973

David, M.-C., and Soustiel, J., Miniatures orientales de l’Inde 4, Paris, 1986

Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981, pp. 238-39

Haidar, N. and Sardar, M.,  Sultans of Deccan India 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015

Zebrowski, M., Deccani Painting, Sotheby Publications, University of California Press, London and Los Angeles, 1983

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)   

This blog continues my recent series of posts on the Library’s Deccani collections with one on Deccani drawings and specifically Deccani Christian subjects from Richard Johnson’s collection.  At least that was the original intention, given that there are ten drawings of Christian subjects described as Deccani from the mid-17^th century in the Falk and Archer catalogue of 1981 in need of further examination, but as I looked at the drawings it seemed harder and harder to justify describing some of them as Deccani rather than Mughal.  This is a difficult area for absolute certainty of attribution, given that we are dealing in most cases with later versions of earlier drawings.   Johnson’s postings are of no help: he was in Lucknow 1780-82 and in Hyderabad 1784-85, but Deccani paintings were freely available in Lucknow also.  This blog will look at two of the drawings, reserving others for a further post.

Our first page, undoubtedly Deccani, unfortunately damaged but still superlatively interesting, is an example of abri or marbled paper used to create drawings combined with blank and painted areas of the paper.  The damaged outer portions and frame of the page have not been included here.

Two oxen fighting.  Deccan, probably Bijapur, early 17^th century.  Marbled paper, wash and gold.  100 by 130 mm (page 190 x 295 mm).  British Library J.53, 3 (detail).

Two superbly drawn oxen silhouetted in marbled paper against plain paper are locking horns.  One ox is outlined in black, and the other in gold, and they each contain other animals including lions, deer, a jackal and rabbits.  The gold outlining round the animals is continued in the loose tethers as well as in the integral marbled frame, which has the owner's seal of Hajji(?) Muhammad Mu‘min.  Although it is from the Richard Johnson Collection put together in India in the 1780s, the drawing was catalogued originally by B.W. Robinson as Persian (Qazwin style) or possibly Turkish, from the second half of the sixteenth century, and so was not included in the Falk and Archer catalogue. The art of marbling was introduced into India from Iran in the 16^th century, but this type of drawing comprising one or more marbled figures against a plain ground seems in fact peculiarly Deccani.  The recent Metropolitan Museum exhibition on Deccani arts brought together several examples, including the famous ascetic riding a marbled emaciated nag outlined in gold from the Museum and its counterpoint from the Morgan Library of the drawn nag outlined in black silhouetted against a dramatically marbled page (Haidar and Sardar 2015, nos. 73, 74).  Our drawing combines the two ideas with its delicate gold and black lines outlining the two fighting oxen.  Some kind of resist technique similar to the dyed kalamkaris of the Deccan has had to be employed to produce these drawings, and here two adjacent areas have been juxtaposed with differently coloured marbled paper. More than that, within each ox, areas have been left free for other animals to be delicately washed in nim qalam: a jackal chases deer and hares in the darker ox, and in the lighter one a magnificently prancing lioness (her rear end unfortunately tampered with) sniffs the air with her lion cub outlined in gold within her, while a hare has taken refuge curled up just within the ox’s head.  This conceit is unlike composite drawings in which the animal’s outline is totally filled with other creatures contorted to fill the space.  Another Deccani version of this composition, also in marbled paper, is in a New York private collection (Pal 1983, no. D1).

Two oxen fighting.  Deccan, early 17^th century.  Marbled paper, wash and gold.  90 x 120 mm.  Private collection, New York.

One of Johnson’s specific interests was in Mughal or Deccani paintings and drawings of Christian subjects, which were normally based on European engravings.  These were brought to Mughal India by the Jesuits in particular, who aimed to use such images to help in the conversion of the peoples of Asia.  Akbar’s and Jahangir’s artists painted over and copied such prints as aids in their quest for command of recession and volume and enlarged upon them in various ways without a care for the original iconography. While these types of drawings from the Mughal period are well known, those from the Deccan are less so.  Although there do not seem to have been any missions sent from Goa to the relatively near Ahmadnagar or Bijapur courts, Christian prints undoubtedly found their way into the hands of these Deccani artists, as evidenced by two drawings in the Freer Gallery (Zebrowski 1983, nos. 83 and 146).  They are clearly different from Mughal treatments of Christian subjects, having a certain angularity and awkwardness about them offset by their calligraphic line or sumptuous colour, which seems typical of what to expect from such material.

One of the finest Christian subjects in Johnson’s collection, unfortunately slightly rubbed, is a wash drawing of the Virgin of the Apocalypse, its iconography based on St. John’s description of the Woman clothed with the Sun from that text.  The Virgin holding the Christ Child in her arms and surrounded by a flaming glory representing the sun stands on a crescent moon and crushes the serpent, representing Satan, beneath her foot.  Two angels bring her a crown while two more hover at her side.  The Christ Child is offering his mother a fruit.

The Virgin of the Apocalypse.  Mughal, c. 1600.  Brush drawing, wash and gold.  136 x 70 mm.  British Library, J.14, 9.

While catalogued by Falk and Archer as Deccani c. 1640-60 (1981, no. 443), it is in fact difficult to see in the drawing any of the specifically Deccani traits mentioned above, especially as another version, undoubtedly Mughal also from around 1600, now in the Freer/Sackler Gallery in Washington (Beach 2012, no. 43), is virtually identical in iconography if not in technique. 

The Virgin of the Apocalypse.  Mughal, c. 1600.  Brush drawing in ink.  129 x 94 mm. Freer/Sackler Gallery, Washington DC, S.1990.57. Smithsonian Institution

The Sackler version is drawn in such a way as to imitate the European engraving on which it is based, for its shading is achieved either by closely grouped parallel lines or cross-hatching, all drawn in ink with a brush.  The Johnson artist has, as is more usually the case in such drawings, converted the engraved lines into wash, here beautifully modelled and shaded, to produce his three-dimensional effects, and enhanced the effect with gold – gold striations on the garments and gold crown, nimbuses and jewellery.

Virgin and Child crowned by Angels.  Engraving by Martin Schongauer, 1469-73.  174 x 110 mm.  British Museum, 1845,0809.257. Trustees of the British Museum

Our drawing has a wonderful softness of the modelling, which in its way is as effective as the original print by Martin Schongauer on which like the Sackler drawing it has been thought to be based.  Schongauer’s original engraving is actually only a half length with the Virgin’s body cut off by the crescent moon while two angels crown the Virgin above.  A full length version as in our drawing is not among the 116 engravings actually by Schongauer.  Other artists such as Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden also made use of a similar iconography in their engravings showing the Virgin, full length, with or without the Christ Child standing on the crescent moon within a glory, and in the case of van Leyden with four angels, all of which were much copied, but the only print that has yet been found that has all the requisite details of our drawings is contained in a prayer book composed of prints by German engravers from early in the 16^th century:  this has the crown, the four angels, the glory, the crescent moon and the serpent, while the Christ Child is also offering a fruit to his mother.

The Virgin of the Apocalypse.  Hand-coloured engraving by Monogrammist M, 1500-25, page from a prayer book of religious prints with Flemish manuscript text.  Page 97 x 65 mm. British Museum, 1868,1114.72. Trustees of the British Museum

 This is by a relatively obscure print maker, Monogrammist M, that is very likely after an as yet undiscovered engraving.  The angels are in different positions from our two drawings, the Virgin’s robe is differently arranged and the serpent faces right instead of left.  On the other hand the Virgin’s hair is arranged closer to our drawings than in the Schongauer print while the child also offers his mother an apple.  A study of a version of this prayer-book in a German library (Andresen 1868) concluded that many of the engravings were after other masters such as Lucas van Leyden and Albrecht Dürer, but no such work from these masters actually conforms to all the elements of Monogrammist M’s work or of our Mughal drawings.

Such prints were certainly taken to India, since they also formed the basis of carvings in ivory in Sri Lanka, Goa and also China.  17^th century ivory statuettes of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (the same iconography but lacking the glory, crown and sometimes the Christ Child), both from Goa and Sri Lanka, show that this iconography was known in South Asia.

The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception standing on the crescent moon on top of a dragon.  Goa or Sri Lanka, mid-17th century.  Carved ivory, height 45 cm.  Victoria & Albert Museum, A. 60-1949.  Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Other ivories from Sri Lanka and Goa are known with this same iconography (see Bailey et al. 2013, pp. 126-29, 188-89). A particularly fine example from China in a private Portuguese collection is an ivory plaque carved in low relief with the subject of the print on which our drawing is based, including the Virgin standing on the crescent moon with four supporting angels but without the Christ Child, crown and serpent (ibid., p. 271).

Further Reading:

Andresen, A., ‘Beiträge zur ältern niederdeutschen Kupferstichkunde des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, in Archiv für die zeichnenden Künste, XIV, 1868, pp. 1-56

Bailey, G.A., The Jesuits and the Grand Mogul: Renaissance Art at the Imperial Court of India, 1580-1630, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 1998, Occasional Papers 1998, vol. 2

Bailey, G.A., Massing, J.M., and Vassallo e Silva, N., Ivories in the Portuguese Empire. Scribe, Lisboa, 2013

Beach, M.C., The Imperial Image:  Paintings for the Mughal Court, revised and expanded edition, Freer/Sackler, Washington, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2012

Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1981, pp. 238-39

Haidar, N. and Sardar, M.,  Sultans of Deccan India 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015, especially pp. 157-69 on abri drawings

Pal, P., Court Paintings of India, 16^th-19^th Centuries, Navin Kumar, New York, 1983

Zebrowski, M., Deccani Painting, Sotheby Publications, University of California Press, London and Los Angeles, 1983

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)

Panipat, north of Delhi, is the location of three historic battles that shaped Mughal history. On the battlefield here in 1526, Babur defeated the Afghan Sultan of Delhi Ibrahim Lodi, which not only ended Lodi rule but gave the Mughals a stronger foothold on the subcontinent.

Battle of Panipat in 1526, from the Baburnama ('Memoirs of Babur') by Deo Gujarati, 1590-93. British Library, Or.3714, f.368r

The second battle took place in 1556, when the emperor Akbar (r.1556-1605) fought a victorious battle against the Hindu Hemu, the last minister of the Afghan kings who had regained control of Delhi and Agra after Humayun’s death. Our drawing documents the military alliances and battle tactics played out between the Afghans and Marathas at the third battle of Panipat of 1761.

In the years following Nadir Shah’s invasion in 1739, emperors Ahmad Shah (r.1748-54)  and ‘Alamgir II (r.1754-59) were both quite weak and could barely voice their opposition against the various political parties wishing to exert their own control over the capital. The lack of a coherent government left the capital susceptible to attacks: from the north came the Afghan Durrani ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali in the 1750s, who looted whatever remained in the aftermath of Nadir Shah’s earlier attack. On the other hand, the capital was dominated by Ghazi al-Din Khan ‘Imad al-Mulk, the Amir al-Umara (Commander-in-Chief of the imperial army), and his alliance with the Marathas from central India. After deposing ‘Imad al-Mulk, the Marathas and the Afghans vied for political control of the capital, which led to the Battle of Panipat in January 1761.

Battle of Panipat, 13  January 1761, Mughal, c.1761. British Library, Johnson Album 66,3.

This exceptionally large composition (510 x 660 mm) required careful organization and precision to illustrate the line-up of the two forces. This scene pictures part of the external walls of the city and fortress that had been occupied by the Maratha forces. Inside the buildings, Afghans assault women and leave a stream of decapitated bodies. Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Afghan ruler, riding on horseback on the right-hand side, is the clear hero of the battle. He is illustrated proportionally larger than the remaining identified officers, dressed in a pink jama, and wears a distinctive pointed headdress.

Detail of Ahmad Shah Abdali, British Library, Johnson Album 66,3 

Each of the major players can be identified through the accompanying inscriptions. Next to Ahmad Shah Abdali is his son Timur Shah on horseback. The Afghans were supported by Najib Khan, the leader of the Rohilla Afghans who lived in the Rohilkhand region between the Ganges and the Jumna rivers, and Navab Shuja’ al-Daula of Avadh, who was coerced into joining the Afghans. These two leaders and their troops are positioned in the lower right corner.

In this battle, the Maratha leader Sadashiv Rao and his army fought against Ahmad Shah Abdali. The Marathas wished to replace the current emperor Shah ‘Alam II with his son Prince Javan Bakht. Sadashiv Rao appears at the middle left edge of this painting, on horseback with bleeding wounds. At centre stage, the line of defence is marked by the double rows of cannons firing against each other. Soldiers prepare for combat, elephants with howdahs carry the military commanders, and billowing smoke as well as bodies fills the scene.

Detail of Sadashiv Rao, British Library, Johnson Album 66,3 

The rapid style of execution in ink, with compressed figures drawn in rows and few touches of colour, aids the viewer through the frenzied battle scene. Compositionally, this style of execution has Mughal precedents, such as the well-known painting of the Battle of Samugarh, when Aurangzeb was victorious in the war of succession against his older brother Dara Shikoh. Within the wider remit of Indian painting, Amber artists Gopal, Jivan and Udai collaborated to illustrate Emperor Bahadur Shah I in battle in the Deccan.

However, although our drawing has been identified as the work of a Faizabad artist, the fact that Ahmad Shah Abdali is prominently drawn proportionately larger than the other figures leads us to question the source of patronage. No artist working in the region controlled by Navab Shuja ’al-Daula would be so bold as to picture the Navab as submissive to Ahmad Shah Abdali. It seems more appropriate to suggest that this is the work of a Mughal artist who worked for the Afghan ruler in the Durrani-controlled Punjab or even Kashmir.

Malini Roy, Visual Arts Curator

The name of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781—1826) is best known today for his role in the founding of Singapore, and by a hotel there that bears only a nominal connection with him. By profession a colonial administrator, by inclination he was a passionate naturalist with broad interests in the humanities that first revealed themselves in his administration of Java (1811—15).

Portrait of Sir Stamford Raffles. British Library, Raffles MSS Eur D.742.14.6.8

In the East India Company he was a somewhat controversial figure, resulting in his being posted to the backwater of Fort Marlborough on the deeply unhealthy west coast of Sumatra (1818—24); here he indulged his hobbies, making substantial collections of naturalia and commissioning Chinese and French artists to illustrate the more spectacular of his finds. Tragically his huge collection was destroyed when packed up on the ship Fame, which in 1824 was to take him and his wife back to England to rejoin their single surviving daughter (in Sumatra Raffles had lost two naturalists and three of his children to fever!)

'Loss of the Fame, East Indiaman'. Engraved by T. Brown.  Published in Stationers Almanack for 1825. British Library, P411.

In the eight weeks until the next ship sailed, he commissioned the artists to remake 44 bird drawings, seven of animals and 27 of plants. These drawings (along with some from his first Oriental period) were preserved by the Raffles family until his indirect descendants, the Drake family, deposited them on permanent loan to the British Library in 1969. In 2007  the collection was purchased for the nation, at which point a significant proportion of them was exhibited in the Central Library, Liverpool and at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The opportunity has now arisen to present a changing selection of these spectacular works in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures of the British Library Gallery, starting with three of the bird paintings – the work of a little-known French artist ‘J. Briois’, who was possibly recruited by Raffles in Calcutta. The following three studies are currently on view. 

Nicobar pigeon, Sumatra, Indonesia, around 1824. Attributed to J. Brios, c. 1824. Watercolour, bodycolour, pencil, gold and silver leaf and gum arabic on paper. British Library, NHD 47/38.

Female crested fireback,Sumatra, Indonesia, around 1824. Attributed to J. Brios, c. 1824. Watercolour, bodycolour, pencil, gold and silver leaf and gum arabic on paper. British Library, NHD 47/42.

Crested fireback, Sumatra, Indonesia, around 1824. Attributed to J. Brios, c. 1824. Watercolour, bodycolour, pencil, gold and silver leaf and gum arabic on paper. British Library, NHD 47/43.

The  Raffles Family Collection was purchased through the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund, Friends of the British Library, Friends of the National Libraries, and John Koh of Singapore.  The BL Shop has a selection of fine art prints, postcards and publications on the Raffles Collection; you can have your own print of the Crested Fireback! 

Further reading:

Memoir of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

H.J. Noltie, Raffles’ Ark Redrawn: Natural History Drawings from the Collection of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.  London: the British Library and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, in association with Bernard Quaritch, 2009.

Henry Noltie, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh