A Rest Home, near Cape Comorin on the Road to Trivandrum

With his father, John, Justinian Gantz was employed as a draughtsman by the East India Company. However, the family owned a lithographic press in Popham's Broadway, Madras, and also practised as architects. The India Office Library have seven watercolours, similar to the present lot, of European houses in Madras, executed between 1832-1841, M. Archer, British Drawings in the India Office Library, 1969, vol. I, p. 49.

Cape Comorin lies at India's southernmost point while Trivandrum, which translates as 'Abode of the Sacred Serpent', is in the state of Kerala. Its lush, forested hills overlook the Arabian Sea.