Foster 978

PRINSEP, WILLIAM (1794-1874), attributed to

For Prinsep’s water-colours, see PRINSEP, WILLIAM (1794-1874). His few known oil paintings seem to be the product of his years of retirement after 1842. This is probably an early example, earlier than such works as his view of Prinsep’s Ghat (‘The Raj, India and Britain’, London, 1990, no.270).

Prince Ghulam Muhammad’s Mosque, Calcutta, c.1840-45.

The mosque on the corner of Chowringhee Road and the Dhurrumtollah in Calcutta, built by Prince Ghulam Muhammad, eighth son of Tipu Sultan, ‘in gratitude to God and in commemoration of the Honourable Court of Directors granting him the arrears of his stipend in 1840,’ and opened in 1842. In front of the mosque are what remains of the ‘extensive but ruinous’ (Bishop Heber) Dhurrumtollah Bazaar, established in 1794, and on the right at the top of the Chowringhee Road is the corner of the Oil Bazaar. A procession bearing an image of Kali standing on a prostrate Siva approches from the Dhurrumtollah, while palanquins, carriages, an adjutant bird, all add to the Calcutta scene.

Oil on canvas; 36 by 49 cm.

Provenance: Hobhouse family, Hadspen House, Somerset, until 1996; purchased 1999.

Note: The painting entered the Hobhouse collections presumably through John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton (1785-1869), President of the Board of Control 1835-41 under Lord Melbourne’s administration, who was instrumental in securing for Prince Ghulam Muhammad the arrears of his stipend; a decorated box presented by the prince to Lord Broughton, with an inscription to that effect, is known. According to his manuscript memoirs, William Prinsep started for home from Calcutta on 21 November 1841, via Egypt, so would have had time to sketch the mosque then building. His oil paintings seem to be products of his retirement.