Description

Anonymous.

[S. l., S. d., but probably Himachal Pradesh or Uttarakhand, mid 19th century].

The detailed water-colour drawing showcases a landscape, which can be identified as the foothills of Himalayas with a large hill in the front and the Himalayan mountain range in the background. A path, travelled by several people, leads up the front hill, which is crowned with an unusual formation, composed of rectangular stones (possibly even remains of a fortress, such as Banasur Fort (Banasur ka Kila) in Uttarakhand?).

The location can be probably searched somewhere in Himachal Pradesh or more probably Uttarakhand, where one encounters similar landscapes. The distance of the Himalayas in the background, which are set relatively close, suggest, that the view was painted on a higher elevation in the hills behind Shimla, hills around the Kotgarh village, or on a location similarly removed from the mountain range in the south-eastern line of this mountain capital, such as the Garhwal Region.

The drawing captures the atmosphere, as described by the painter and author James Baillie Fraser (1783-1856) in his Journal of a Tour Through Part of the Snowy Range of the Himala Mountains, and to the Sources of the Rivers Jumna and Ganges (1820, p. 159), who travelled over four months north-west of the Garhwal, in 1815:

“The soil covering the rock was a rich black vegetable mould, and it gave a luxuriant carpet of the productions usually met with in such places, viz. all sorts of strawberries, columbines, lilies of the valley, buttercups, yellow, blue, and white cowslips, a small and very beautiful flower partaking of the auricula and cowslip, purple and blue, and a superb sort of lupine of a dark blackish purple. A species of larkspur was also found of a lovely blue, as one of our people somewhat poetically observed, “shining in the forest like a bright lamp in the dark night.

Such was the slope, but steep and interrupted with rocks and fallen trees, over which we reached the pass between the two peaks of the Urructa mountain, whence, looking to the northward, the whole stupendous range of the Himālā burst upon our view, now no longer fading into distance, but clear and well defined. Bright with snow, and rising far above all intervening obstacles, they stretched, bounding our view from far beyond the Sutlej, till our sight was interrupted, where, in all probability, the hills of Gungotri and Buddrinaath arose. The day was clear, and only here and there a black cloud rested on the highest peaks. The scene was majestic, and if the epithet can justly be applied to any thing on earth, truly sublime.”

Author and Date

The view is not dated, but was according to the style and paper probably made in the mid 19th century.

The travel to the remote places of the Himalaya foothills in the mid-19th century was difficult and only possible in sporadic months, as the weather tended to be uncooperative and if not cold and rainy, the fog and clouds often blocked the view of the Himalayas. Especially notable with the present drawing is the size of the paper, which had to be carried together with all the painting equipment in difficult terrains and moist. The present drawing indicates a determined artist, who probably painted more than one image on the journey.

The author of the present drawing remains anonymous.

Only a handful of British artists accessed the remote foothills of the Himalayas in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Most noticeable were James Atkinson, Thomas and William Daniell, James Baillie Fraser, William Edwards, James Fergusson, Charles Stewart Hardinge, William Simpson and Anne Eliza Scott.

With its suttle realism, lack of historical buildings and theatrical orientalist scenes, and rather paying attention to the beauty of the greenery of the landscape with hardly noticeable protagonists, painted from their backs, going about their daily business, the present drawing resembles the artwork of Anne Eliza Scott (1810-1892), who is known by her sole work Views of Himalayas, Drawn on the Spot by Mrs. W.L.L. Scott (Henry Graves & Company, 1852).

In the past, the present drawing was attributed to the painter Harden Sidney Melville (1824-1894). We could not find any resemblance to his work nor any records, that he was travelling in the area, represented on the drawing.

References: Cf.: Nilanjana Mukherjee, Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason, 2020; Pheroza Godrej and Pauline Rohatgi, Scenic Splendours. India through the Printed Image, 1989.