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Add Or 4311
- Record Id:
- 032-003264057
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-003264057
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100028181445.0x0001fa
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add Or 4311
- Title:
-
The Great Gun of Agra lying beside the Fort wall. Artist(s): Sita Ram (fl. c.1810-1822)
- Scope & Content:
-
The Great Gun of Agra, lying unmounted on the bank of the Jumna below the Shah Burj of the Agra Fort. A ‘toran’, small temple and ruins of Mughal buildings are in the foreground along with tiny people (some inside the gun) and an elephant. In the distance across the river is the Taj Mahal and its gateway, dissolving into an heat haze.
By Sita Ram, 1814-15.
Inscribed below: ‘Doond Hanee or great Gun lying at Beessara Ghaut at Agra’.
Water-colour on paper watermarked ‘John Dickinson & Co. 1810’; 375 by 559 mm, laid down on a mount of similar paper watermarked ‘J. Whatman 1811’.
Purchased 1986.
Published: J.P. Losty: ‘The Great Gun at Agra’, ‘British Library Journal’, v.15, 1989, pp.35-58.
Note: The painting comes from the original volume IX of the Hastings Albums, ‘Views by Seeta Ram from Secundra to Agra Vol. IX’, sold as lot 263 of Sotheby’s sale 9th January 1974. See Add.Or.4698-4880.
For the Great Gun which forms the subject of this painting, once one of the sights of Agra, see the paper by Losty cited above. Its name is apparently a corruption of ‘dhun dhvani’ (‘Roar of an explosion’). It was destroyed on the orders of the Governor-General Lord William Cavendish Bentinck in 1833 in order for the sale of the scrap metal to finance the construction of a permanent bridge of boats across the Jumna at Agra.
- Collection Area:
- Visual Arts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-003264057", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add Or 4311: The Great Gun of Agra lying beside the Fort wall. Artist(s): Sita Ram (fl. c.1810-1822)" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-003264057
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-003264057
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 Item
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Not applicable
- Scripts:
- Not applicable
- Styles:
- Bengal style
Calcutta style
Eastern India style - Start Date:
- 1814
- End Date:
- 1815
- Date Range:
- 1814-1815
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Appointment required to view these records. Please consult Asian and African Studies Print Room staff.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Medium: watercolour
- Exhibitions:
- Forgotten Masterpieces of Indian Painting for the East India Company, The Wallace Collection, London - 4 December 2019
- Material Type:
- Prints, Drawings and Paintings
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Ram, Sita, fl 1810-1822
- Subjects:
- arms and armour
rivers and lakes - Places:
- Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India