View of the Country from Urshalun Teeba

March 1, 1820

Original hand-coloured aquatint on paper

Without mount: 17.7 x 23.2 in (45.2 x 59 cm)
With mount: 22 x 28.8 in (56 x 73.4 cm)

This is plate no. 3 from the book Views in the Himala Mountains, published by Rodwell & Martin: London, 1820.

With masterfully rendered mountainous landscapes by R Havell and Son after sketches made by Fraser, the present lot shows the view over the Himalayas with soldiers gathered on ledge in the foreground centre and right, trees on the left. The style of the plates is strikingly comparable to those of large-scale views released 10 or 20 years previously by the Daniell brothers and Henry Salt. The publishers intentionally employed this tactic to highlight the similarities between the works, as seen in their advertising that characterise the piece as being in “Elephant Folio, uniform with Daniell's Oriental Scenery, and Salt's Twenty Four Views taken in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, Abyssinia & Egypt”.

Scottish adventurer, artist, and travel writer James Baillie Fraser (June 11, 1783 - January 1856) who was tutored by artist George Chinnery, wrote a great deal about India, the Himalayas, Persia, and Central Asia and documented his travels in the form of sketches and writings.

Fraser went to India with the goal of establishing a trading business and relieving his family of debt from a bankrupt sugar plantation in the West Indies. Fraser visited his brother William, who was working for the East India Company at the time, in Dehli in 1815. In the Anglo-Nepalese War, William had been assigned to serve as a political operative. James first drew the Himalayan landscape when he met him in the steep area northeast of Delhi. Later, he explored the area in search of the sources of the Yamuna and Ganga rivers.

Fraser and his brother William arrived in Urshalun, close to the location of the Nepalese General Kirti Rana's capitulation, on 18 June 1815. After three days, James ascended Tiba, the peak located behind the settlement, to commemorate his thirty-second birthday.

Upon his return to Calcutta, he was encouraged to publish these by Rodwell & Martin. The writings were published as The Journal of a Tour Through Part of the Snowy Range of the Himalaya Mountains and to the Sources of the Rivers Jumna and Ganges. The drawings made during this voyage were published in 1820 as Views in the Himala Mountains.

This work will be shipped unframed

NON-EXPORTABLE

This lot will be shipped in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as reference for the condition of each lot.