AN IMPORTANT LARGE-SCALE COMPANY SCHOOL VIEW OF THE TAJ MAHAL

View of the Taj Mahal from the north from across the river Jumna

By an Agra draftsman, circa 1815-20

Watercolour on paper, watermarked J WHATMAN 1811

64 by 99 cm., 25 ¼ by 39 in. within mount

Earlier views of the Taj Mahal from the river were centred on the mausoleum itself. It seems to have been the artist Latif, (see catalogue nos. 28 & 29), who about 1820 moved the perspective to centre on the mosque to the west of the mausoleum, thereby increasing the beauty and complexity of the perspective drawing. By his use of the play of light and shadow, the artist has here given the hieratic image of the Taj an added dimension, that emotional content so often absent from Company School painting. To the right on the west side is the mosque and opposite on the east side is the Mihman Khana or assembly hall used as a guest house.

Built between 1632-43, the Taj Mahal was commissioned by Shah Jahan (r.1628-58), following the death of his wife Arjumand Banu Begam, known by her title Mumtaz Mahal, the "Elect of the Palace". Its beauty and perfection were so celebrated that it alone of all the great Mughal monuments of Agra and Delhi escaped serious damage in the numerous sieges and sacks of those cities in the later eighteenth century. For the first time accessible to British visitors from 1803, it formed the inescapable centrepiece of various albums of large drawings of the Mughal monuments for twenty years, sometimes receiving a whole volume devoted to its beauties alone.

For further details see:
Alfieri, B.M., Islamic Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent, London, 2000
Koch, E., The Complete Taj Mahal, London, 2006
Okada, A. & Nou, J.-L., Taj Mahal, New York & Paris, 1993
Pal, P., ed., Romance of the Taj Mahal, London & Los Angeles, 1989

Provenance

Private collection, London, 1980s-2012