Lot 105: Robert Home (1752-1834) , View of the Gate of the Lal Bagh Oil on canvas

Oil on canvas

26 by 30 1/8 in. (66 by 76.5 cm. )

Giles Tillotson, The Artificial Empire: The Indian Landscapes of William Hodges, 2000, p.62, plate II, illustrated

One of the few British artists to have spent almost the whole of a long career in India, Robert Home is well known primarily as a portrait painter of both British and Indian political dignitaries. He is also known as a painter of historical scenes, through such major works as Lord Cornwallis receiving the sons of Tipu Sultan as Hostages (National Army Museum, London), and his views of battlefields associated with the Mysore wars. In addition, he painted some southern landscapes, including the two views of Mahabalipuram in the collection of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. The present picture is the only known oil by Home of a topographical subject in the north of the subcontinent. It is also exceptionally rare as an eighteenth century British painting of a site now in Bangladesh. Born in Hull 1752, Home was the son of an army surgeon. He arrived in Madras early in 1791. Much of his work in south India was connected with the wars against Tipu Sultan then being pursued by Lord Cornwallis, and this was compiled in two published collections; Select Views in Mysore (1794) and Views of Seringapatam (1796). In the spring of 1795 he moved to Calcutta, and established a practice as a portrait painter which flourished for nearly twenty years. In 1814, perhaps in response to increasing competition from other artists, he moved to Lucknow. The Nawabs had long been significant patrons of British portrait painters, and Home served the court there for a further period of thirteen years. Upon the death of Nawab Gliazi-ud-din Haidar in 1827, he retired to Kanpur, where he eventually died in September 1834. Writing in 1928, Sir Evan Cotton tells us that, 'there are three paintings by Home in the collection of Maharaja Sir Prodyot Coomar Tagore at Calcutta. Two are Indian landscapes, and the third is described in the catalogue as an "Indian Gateway;" all are of the same dimensions 28 by 24 inches'. The current picture, purchased from the Tagore family in the 1960s, undoubtedly corresponds with the 'Indian Gateway.' The subject of this work has been identified by J.P. Losty as the Gate of the Lal Bagh in Dacca, a fortified complex built by Mughal governors in the 1680's. Mildred Archer notes that Home's sitters book records that he made 'a visit to Dacca between June and August 1799', as one of his few excursions from the capital during his period in Calcutta. Corroborating this, Cotton again tells us that, on Home's death in 1834, some of his pictures were presented to the Asiatic Society by his sons, and that these included a portrait of 'Nusserat [Nusrat] Jang. Nawab of Dacca 1787- 1822 a great patron of the arts'. It is interesting that this is also attested by Bishop Heber, who visited Dacca in July 1824 (during the time of Nusrat Jang's successor) and later that same year had his portrait painted by Home in Lucknow. It seems probable that an invitation to visit Dacca from the Nawab in the summer of 1799 was the occasion for the production of this exceptional painting.