A view of the Taj Mahal from the southwest, by an Agra artist, North India, Company School, circa 1810-15

This illustration presents the Taj Mahal from the southwest corner terrace, providing a view across the front of the mausoleum towards the southeast 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.

There might be a European prototype for this view of the Taj Mahal by an Agra draughtsman, that of the eccentric artist and indigo planter Thomas Loncroft, whose only surviving coloured drawing describes the mausoleum from the same southwest 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. Other comparable views of the Taj Mahal sold recently in these rooms, 1 May 2019, lot 126 and 10 June 2020, lot 148.

Influenced by British taste, this watercolour illustrates the steady increase in demand for views of Mughal monuments in the early nineteenth century after the British took control of Delhi in 1803.