Lot 278: A Pass in the Himalaya

Lieutenant-Colonel George Francis White (1808-1898)
A Pass in the Himalaya
signed with initials 'G.F.W.' (lower left)
watercolour on paper
10½ x 13¼in. (26.7 x 33.6cm.)

White's Views in India chiefly among the Himalaya Mountains taken during tours in the direction of Mussooree, Simla, the sources of the Jumna and Ganges etc. in 1829, 31, 32 , (E. Roberts, ed., London, 1838) included 37 plates after his drawings, the engravers including J.M.W. Turner. The Views by this officer of the 31st Regiment provided one of the first pictorial surveys of the then little-known Himalayas ('... with the Mountain Scenery of India, surpassed in grandeur by none other in the world, we have been hitherto very little familiar', Preface ). White also published Hindostan, the shores of the Red Sea and the Himalaya Mountains in 1845 and his drawings were used for Robert Burford's panorama of the Himalayas exhibited at Leicester Square in 1847.