Add Or 5476

A view from the rocky heights above the Military Cantonment looking toward the city of Delhi, c.1845. The view is taken from the Ridge, in the neighbourhood of Hindu Rao’s house, and encompasses the northern and eastern walls, the Jami‘ Masjid, the Red Fort and Salimgarh, and St. James’s Church being prominent. Lesser mosques visible including the Fatehpuri Masjid and Akbarabadi Masjid. Outside the walls, the back views of the Qudsia Bagh and Ludlow Castle are seen with the river beyond. Perspective is most skilfully handled in the recession of the foreground dotted with trees, rocks and animals.

Attributed to Mazhar 'Ali Khan (fl.1840s), c.1845.

Water-colour and body-colour on ivory; 105 by 210 mm.

Literature: Simon Ray, ‘Indian and Islamic Works of Art’, London, 2003, no. 35.

Purchased 2003.

Note: cf. the view of Delhi from further back along the Ridge in the ‘Delhi Book’ of Sir T. Metcalfe (Add.Or. 5275, f. 11v, not by Mazhar ‘Ali Khan), about which Metcalfe complains: ‘The artist in his endeavour to do much has been more minute than clear in his delineation.’ This seems a riposte by Mazhar ‘Ali Khan himself.