WD483

View of Gwalior Fort from the north-west. c.1790.

Note: The second drawing is identical with the aquatint, 'Fortress of Gwalior, taken by General Popham in 1779', published on 1 March 1804 as plate 11 of ‘Twenty-four views in Hindostan,’ a set of engravings sponsored by Edward Orme between 1802 and 1805. Although no artist's or engraver's name is attached to this plate, it formed part of a series of aquatints redrawn by William Orme from paintings by Thomas Daniell and Francis Swain Ward ‘in the possession of Richard Chase, late Mayor of Madras'. Chase, who was Mayor of Madras in 1800, had obtained a number of Ward's pictures on his death in 1794.

As Daniell did not visit Gwalior, the aquatint (plate 11) must have been made from one of Ward's pictures. Although Ward spent his army service in Madras, it is clear that he visited northern India on at least two occasions: the first before his return to England in 1764, the second during his final stay in India between 1773 and 1794. Amongst the paintings presented to the East India Company in 1773 was a view of Sher Shah's tomb, Sasaram (Bihar), obviously dating from his first visit, and in the ‘Twenty-four views in Hindostan’ are impressions of Calcutta and of Anupshahr (U.P.). Since Anupshahr is about 140 miles due north of Gwalior which was in enemy hands until 1779, it is likely that Ward visited both places during an extended tour of Upper India after his retirement from the army in 1787.

Exhibited: Fondazione Roma, 'Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner: British Painting and the Rise of Modernity, 2014.