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Lot Essay
'31st January 1789: Came to our ground at Aurungabad, three miles south of Mutura - Mutura just discovered with the Glass. 2nd February 1789: Un and self spent the day at the fort where we made a View each, and at a Mosque built by Aurangzebe on the site of a Hindoo temple near 1,000 years old.' (from William Daniell's diary)
'Upon quitting the Chauter Serai we reached Mathura, a town celebrated for an establishment of monkeys, supported by a bequest from Mahadajee Scindia, as stated in the former volume of this work. Here is a very magnificent mosque, said to have been built by Abdulnubbi Khan, a foujdar [an officer who has the charge of a troop of elephants] of the Emperor Aurungzebe. ... The mosque, ... of which a most faithful representation is given in the accompanying engraving, is stated by some historians ... to have been built by the emperor himself with the materials of a temple previously erected by the Rajah of Oorcha. This latter is said to have been a noble Hindoo structure raised by the Rajah after the rebuilding of Mathura, and to have cost upwards of four hundred thousand pounds sterling - a vast sum at that period, especially where the price of labour is so low. This was the temple that was pulled down to make room for the mosque, which now stands upon the same ground and is a fine structure. The body of the building, which is quadrangular, is flanked by four superb minarets nearly a hundred feet high. They have each ten angles, are sparingly ornamented and surmounted by small cupolas, supported upon slender pillars of stone. At intervals there are balconies, which are reached by a staircase from within and impart a graceful finish to each minaret. The gateway of this temple is lofty, and its architectural decorations are very elegant. The spandrels of the arch which forms the portal, are faced with white marble, admirably harmonizing with the darker material of which the adjacent parts are constructed. The arch, like the gothic, terminates in a point, rising to a considerable height above the entrance and leading immediately into the interior of the sanctuary. There is a projecting stone gallery over the gateway, decorated with a profusion of tracery in the very happiest style of redundant embellishment; for though the ornaments are profuse, there is not the slightest confusion nor the least violation of taste. On either side of this gallery are sunken panels covered with finely executed inscriptions from the Koran. From the doorway of the mosque to the street there is a descent by a broad flight of steps, composed of durable stone, forming at once a compact and beautiful piece of masonry. The street is here so spacious that a numerous cavalcade of elephants and horses may pass without difficulty. The picture represents an elephant kneeling at the bottom of the steps awaiting its rider, who has just descended from his devotions in the sanctuary. On the left of the steps, as you face the mosque, is a large bazaar, abundantly supplied with every thing that might tempt the palate of the most luxurious, from a kismish [a dried raisin] to a pine-apple.' (The Oriental Annual, London, 1835, vol. II, pp.117-20)
There are three oils by Thomas Daniell of the same great mosque off the Delhi-Agra road (The Jama Masjid of Abd-ul-Nabi at Mathura on the River Jumna), for which see M. Shellim, op. cit., TD52, TD63 and TD118, the second exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, no,102 ('The Jummah Masjed at Mutura, East Indies') - William's version the most animated of the four views and the model for the plate in the Oriental Annual, 1835, p.118 ('Mosque at Muttra'). Mathura, or Muttra, lies on the western bank of the Yamuna river north of Agra in Uttar Pradesh and is one of the holiest Hindu cities. It became a centre for the Vaishnava cult by the 15th century and it is celebrated as the birthplace of Krishna, the popular incarnation of Vishnu. The Jami Masjid was completed in 1661 by Abd-un-Nabi, Aurangzeb's governor.
'Upon quitting the Chauter Serai we reached Mathura, a town celebrated for an establishment of monkeys, supported by a bequest from Mahadajee Scindia, as stated in the former volume of this work. Here is a very magnificent mosque, said to have been built by Abdulnubbi Khan, a foujdar [an officer who has the charge of a troop of elephants] of the Emperor Aurungzebe. ... The mosque, ... of which a most faithful representation is given in the accompanying engraving, is stated by some historians ... to have been built by the emperor himself with the materials of a temple previously erected by the Rajah of Oorcha. This latter is said to have been a noble Hindoo structure raised by the Rajah after the rebuilding of Mathura, and to have cost upwards of four hundred thousand pounds sterling - a vast sum at that period, especially where the price of labour is so low. This was the temple that was pulled down to make room for the mosque, which now stands upon the same ground and is a fine structure. The body of the building, which is quadrangular, is flanked by four superb minarets nearly a hundred feet high. They have each ten angles, are sparingly ornamented and surmounted by small cupolas, supported upon slender pillars of stone. At intervals there are balconies, which are reached by a staircase from within and impart a graceful finish to each minaret. The gateway of this temple is lofty, and its architectural decorations are very elegant. The spandrels of the arch which forms the portal, are faced with white marble, admirably harmonizing with the darker material of which the adjacent parts are constructed. The arch, like the gothic, terminates in a point, rising to a considerable height above the entrance and leading immediately into the interior of the sanctuary. There is a projecting stone gallery over the gateway, decorated with a profusion of tracery in the very happiest style of redundant embellishment; for though the ornaments are profuse, there is not the slightest confusion nor the least violation of taste. On either side of this gallery are sunken panels covered with finely executed inscriptions from the Koran. From the doorway of the mosque to the street there is a descent by a broad flight of steps, composed of durable stone, forming at once a compact and beautiful piece of masonry. The street is here so spacious that a numerous cavalcade of elephants and horses may pass without difficulty. The picture represents an elephant kneeling at the bottom of the steps awaiting its rider, who has just descended from his devotions in the sanctuary. On the left of the steps, as you face the mosque, is a large bazaar, abundantly supplied with every thing that might tempt the palate of the most luxurious, from a kismish [a dried raisin] to a pine-apple.' (The Oriental Annual, London, 1835, vol. II, pp.117-20)
There are three oils by Thomas Daniell of the same great mosque off the Delhi-Agra road (The Jama Masjid of Abd-ul-Nabi at Mathura on the River Jumna), for which see M. Shellim, op. cit., TD52, TD63 and TD118, the second exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, no,102 ('The Jummah Masjed at Mutura, East Indies') - William's version the most animated of the four views and the model for the plate in the Oriental Annual, 1835, p.118 ('Mosque at Muttra'). Mathura, or Muttra, lies on the western bank of the Yamuna river north of Agra in Uttar Pradesh and is one of the holiest Hindu cities. It became a centre for the Vaishnava cult by the 15th century and it is celebrated as the birthplace of Krishna, the popular incarnation of Vishnu. The Jami Masjid was completed in 1661 by Abd-un-Nabi, Aurangzeb's governor.