Thomas DANIELL R.A. (1749-1840, English) & Sawrey GILPIN (1733-1807, English)

‘A Grey Arabian Mare held by Two Muslim syces (grooms) outside the Lal Qila (Red Fort), Shajahanabad, Delhi’

c.1800

Oil on canvas

Framed in a fine original frame 46 ¼ x 61 inches

Price: Sold

Provenance

The Milbanke Collection, Halnaby Hall, Yorkshire;

Sir Ralph (Milbanke) Noel, (d.1825), of Halnaby;

By descent to his daughter, Annabella, Lady Byron, wife of the poet George Byron, 6th Baron Byron (according to an inscription on the back of the stretcher this picture is recorded in an inventory of Lady Byron's plate and pictures of 1826, together with a companion picture of another Arab mare);

By descent to their daughter, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815–52), wife of William King, 1st Earl of Lovelace (1805–93);

By descent to their daughter, Anne Blunt, suo jure 15th Baroness Wentworth (1837–1917), wife of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922), Crabbet Park Arabian Stud;

By descent to their daughter, Judith Blunt-Lytton, suo jure 16th Baroness Wentworth (1873–1957), Crabbet Park, (according to the inscription on the back of the stretcher);

With The Leger Galleries, London, by September 1962 From whom acquired as a gift for the late owner.

Literature

Lady Wentworth, Horses of Britain, London 1944, p. 25, reproduced in colour.

The interest in all things Oriental reached its height in 1784 the year that Thomas Daniell applied to the East India Company to travel to Bengal to follow his profession of an engraver. Accompanied by his 16 year old nephew, William, Thomas sailed from the Downs in the Atlas East Indiaman by way of Canton only reaching Calcutta a year later. After two years hard work in Calcutta - engraving the plates for a fine set of 12 aquatint views of the city, Thomas and William set out on an extended journey through Northern India. They travelled by boat, and on foot, further than any European artist reaching Delhi before an intrepid journey into the Garhwal foothills. From there they returned to Calcutta via Lucknow where they made some paintings Claude Martin. They also stayed for nearly a year with the brilliant fellow artist Samuel Davis in Bhagalpur. Later they were to travel extensively in South India. On each of these extensive journeys the artists completed hundreds of drawings of both the landscape and the Hindu and Muslim monuments they encountered. These formed the basis for their work in both aquatint and oil that they worked up for the next 40 years of their lives.

In 1794 the two Daniells returned to London (again by way of China) and they immediately began work on their most celebrated and monumental work - engraving the plates for the six volumes of Oriental Scenery - it took thirteen years to complete. In the meantime both artist began to work up oils of Indian views, based on their vast stock of drawings. Thomas was at the height of his ability and his watercolours and oil paintings reveal his extraordinary power of observation. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and thereby promoted an interest in India from which a whole generation drew its concept of the exotic.

It was unusual but by no means unique for Thomas to collaborate with another artist in an oil painting. So when a patron wanted his magnificent Arab mare painted in an Indian setting he would have turned to the most famous artist of the Indian scene of the day, Thomas Daniell, together with arguably the finest horse painter after Stubbs - the Irish artist, Sawrey Gilpin. Gilpin had studied with Stubbs and learnt the anatomy of a horse from him. He gave his horses real character and liveliness that none of his contemporaries achieved. Gilpin frequently collaborated with other artists. He usually painted the animals in William Hodges’s paintings of both Indian and English landscapes and the same for his fellow Irish artist George Barrett.

The present painting under consideration here must have been painted at the turn of the 18th/19th Century a very few years before Gilpin’s death in 1807. The handling of the landscape is typical of Thomas Daniell’s finest work. Thomas has placed his scene outside the walls of Shah Jehan’s famous Lal Qila or Red Fort in Delhi, It is rendered with his usual thinly applied paint reminiscent of his watercolours. The palette is consistent with all his work of the period, and the foliage and trees are comparable to numerous other landscapes of Upper India. The figures of two Syces (grooms) - both Muslim - are taken from figure studies done mostly in Calcutta in the 1780s. These rare figure studies often have colour notes for future paintings. They are carefully and accurately delineated with great sensitivity. Their tent, to protect them from the heat of the midday sun, reminds one of a similar tent in superb watercolour of Maner, near Patna. This watercolour also shows a horse within the composition (formerly in the P & O collection, sold by Spink and Son, 1974). In the background the walls and pavilions of the Lal Qila are depicted with Daniell’s keen observation for architectural details. He had been in Delhi with William at the end of August 1786 and, accompanied by Colonel William Palmer and Colonel Briscoe, they visited the Lal Qila and Thomas made at least three drawings of the fort (Victoria Memorial Hall) that were used in the present composition.

The painting of the Arab mare is similarly typical in every way to Gilpin’s finest horse studies of his late period. It is rendered in his customary thick paint with impasto (in contrast to that of Thomas Daniell) and the pentimenti are a common feature of his work of the period. The grey horse is drawn with profound sensitivity showing its strength and beauty - the mare’s head is animated and conveys the spirited nature of this magnificent race of horses.

The painting has survived in excellent condition.

We are most grateful to Charles Greig for his confirmation of attribution and description of this painting:

“I have no doubt in confirming my opinion that this rare painting is an autograph work of Thomas Daniell in collaboration with Sawrey Gilpin - two of the most gifted painters in their fields of the age.” Charles Greig (24 June 2019)