A VIEW OF THE TAJ MAHAL FROM THE WEST LOOKING EAST, INDIA, COMPANY SCHOOL, FIRST HALF 19TH CENTURY

This picture presents the Taj Mahal from the south-west corner terrace, providing a view across the front of the mausoleum towards the south-east corner tower. The subject concurrently exhibits the beauty and detail of the decoration along the mausoleum and the artist’s ability to execute the work in double-point perspective. In addition the perspective provides a good view of the alternating marble and sandstone slabs encircling the mausoleum.

The current example may be the only draughtsman’s view of the Taj Mahal for which there may be a European prototype, that of the eccentric artist and indigo planter Thomas Loncroft, whose only surviving coloured drawing describes the mausoleum from the same south-west approach (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see E. Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal, London, 2006, fig.357). Longcroft arrived in India with his friend Johan Zoffany in 1783 and drew some of the Mughal monuments of Delhi and Agra in the 1780s and 1790s in meticulous detail, normally finished in wash. For a similar Agra draughtsman’s view, see M. Archer, Company drawings in the India Office Library, London, 1972, pl.62 (British Library inv.no.Add.Or.922).

Another similar view sold in these rooms, 1 May 2019, lot 126.