Lot 61

WILLIAM SIMPSON (1823-1899) (Lots 61-67) The Victorian age produced perhaps many remarkable artist-travellers, but William Simpson 'was one of the best of them - truthful, intrepid, and very talented. He took nothing for granted.' (M. Archer and P. Theroux, Visions of India: the sketchbooks of William Simpson 1859-62, London, 1986, p.1). Simpson was born in a Glasgow slum on 28 October 1823, and though his education lasted just over one year, he taught himself French, attended night classes, and read his way through poetry, literary criticism, theology, and architecture, in fact anything that he thought would be of interest. By the end of his life he was, apart from a recognised and famous watercolourist, also an accomplished writer, journalist, archaeologist and religious scholar. As a result of Simpson's father working in a printing shop, Simpson was apprenticed from the age of fourteen to a lithographer where his industry and talent were immediately recognised. Naturally ambitious, Simpson set off for London in 1851 and took up lithographic work with Day and Son. In 1854 a few days before his 31st birthday, he was presented with the opportunity to go to the Crimea as a war artist as part of a joint venture with Day and Son and the publisher Colnaghi. Upon his return to London, with the soubriquet 'Crimean' pinned to his name, Simpson's reputation as a war artist was made. His 80 watercolours from this event, exhibited in London, Manchester, and Glasgow, were received with great praise. They were also published in a work called The Seat of War in the East, to which permission was granted for dedication to Queen Victoria - the beginning of a lasting friendship. Simpson's next project, also his longest at seven years, was to cover India. This however happened less by any burning desire than by accident. Simpson's original plan to cover the 1859 war between France and Austria was thwarted by the Queen's fear that he might be taken for a spy. Meanwhile, the Mutiny that struggled on in India from March 1857 to June 1858 had caused an enormous upsurge of interest in that country at home. It was decided between Simpson and Day and Son, therefore, that he should produce a work concerned with the 'cause of the Mutiny and everything connected with the people of India'. The scale of the work was ambitious - 250 watercolours - similar in scale to David Roberts' lithographic volumes of Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land published by Day and Son in 1855. Furthermore, the Queen gave permission, even before publication, that the book be dedicated to her. With these promising omens, Simpson arrived in Calcutta on 29 October 1859, the start of what would be just under three years of travel in India. Simpson's journey in India can be broken up into six parts. First, between October 1859 and March 1860, he travelled up country from Calcutta to the north west in Punjab where he joined Viceroy Lord Canning who was honouring the rajas and chiefs who had remained loyal to the British during the Mutiny. Simpson was delighted to find that as a result of Lady Canning's interest in painting, sketching was regarded as a serious daily event and 'it appeared at times as if the whole camp was merely a gigantic sketching excursion.' (The Autobiography of William Simpson, R.I. (Crimean Simpson), London, 1903, p.105). Next, when the hot weather commenced on the plains, Simpson went on his first Himalayan tour from April to August 1860, arriving at Simla, and going deeper into China and the Tibetan mountains. Following this, from October 1860 to January 1861, Simpson went down country covering Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, and Benares. Next, from January to March 1861, Simpson travelled around central India, including Rajasthan. Though he had started out with Lord and Lady Canning's party, he quickly tired of the stage settings of the Durbars and escaped in his characteristic quest for truth. Accompanied by about ten coolies, he slept while travelling by night in a dhooly, or light palanquin, and sketched by day. In his prescient way he remarked, 'The ordinary traveller who 'does' India, sees Bombay, Calcutta, Benares, Agra, and Delhi, but the vast spaces between these noted places he sees nothing of. It is in these spaces that the real India exists' ( The Autobiography etc., op.cit., p.136). As the hot weather had commenced again, Simpson made his second Himalayan tour from April to October 1861. This time he started out at Mussourie and went up to Gangotri, the source of the Ganges; crossed some treacherous passes - Manji Kanta, Roopin, Purung, and Tunglung; and made his way to Kashmir. Finally, from November 1861 to February 1862, Simpson visited South India and Bombay. Intending to travel to Bombay overland from Madras so that he could draw a number of the famous South Indian temples on the way, he found time was short, and therefore took a steamer via Ceylon calling on various ports along the way - Point de Galle in Ceylon; Quilon and Cohin on the Malabar Coast; Calicut, Cannanore, and Mangalore before arriving in Bombay. Upon his return to England, Simpson found the drabness of England rather a shock after having been away so long 'To my eye after the bright colour of India, the contrast was great, and it seemed to me that the people went about with the appearance of black beetles.' (The Autobiography etc., op.cit., p.173). Simpson's sketches of India - drawn with a very fine pencil swiftly and directly onto a small sketchbook - served as the raw material for his 250 finished watercolours, the majority of which were completed in England some three or four years after his return. The finished works are often quite different from the sketches, though they retain their quality of immediacy through their bright, vivid colouring and attention to detail. It was this accuracy, the idea of complete truth, that became his hallmark 'I may,' he wrote in an unpublished writing entitled Experience 'have to tell you a plain and simple story but you may trust it to be a true one.' In fact Simpson's Indian work was often extremely original in its approach to the subject. The original intention of describing the various aspects of the Mutiny took a back seat to unprecedented subjects for the artist's brush - dust storms in Rajputana, crocodiles and vultures on the Ganges, bustling street life in Bombay, pooja ceremonies in the Himalayas. All these subjects 'demanded not only the skill of a topographer but the creative imagination of the artist as well.' (P. Pal and V. Dehejia, From Merchants to Emperors..., Ithaca, New York, 1986, p.122). The full set of 250 watercolours was shown in London in the German Gallery in 1866 to unequivocal praise and enthusiasm. The success, however, rapidly turned to disaster as, unknown to Simpson, Day and Son were in the throes of bankruptcy. The original intention of producing a volume of 250 plates was all but abandoned, the work India, Ancient and Modern, being reduced to 50 chromolithographs of very poor quality and a text cobbled together by Sir John Kaye with a rather pathetic apology tacked on, describing the circumstances of the book's awkward birth. Finding an alternative publisher, however, was not a possibility as the pictures belonged to Day and Son who promptly sold them off as a sort of bankrupt stock. For all the time and labour bestowed on this work, Simpson was rewarded with nothing more than a book unlikely to enhance his reputation and not a penny to his name. 'Had India, Ancient and Modern been produced in its original form and to Simpson's exacting standards, his name may well be better known today perhaps as 'Indian' rather than 'Crimean' Simpson' (The Fine Arts Society, Mr. William Simpson of the Illustrated London News, Pioneer War Artist 1823-1899, London, 1986, 8 June - 4 July 1987, p.6). Simpson made one more trip to India. In 1875 he was sent out by the Illustrated London News to follow the tour of the Prince of Wales. The highlight of this trip was the four weeks spent tiger shooting in the Terai with Sir Jung Bahadur Rana (see lot 63). From this tour Simpson exhibited 200 watercolours and drawings in 1876 which were very well-received in London's Burlington Gallery. The same year he also published a book illustrated by twelve plates called Shikare and Tomasha, a Souvenir of the visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales to India. Simpson died in 1899, leaving behind a richness of visual and written work, but a paucity of information about his own life. It has been remarked that 'if he [Simpson] had a fault it was his intense sense of privacy, but this is not unusual in someone who seemed virtually to have come from nowhere... why should anyone want to know of the dullness, the sadness, the humiliation of having nothing? This reticence of Simpson's is unhelpful for anyone writing about him, because there is so much in the foreground and so little in the background - and come to think of it, his pictures are a bit that way, too.' (M. Archer & P. Theroux, op.cit., p.1).

William Simpson (1823-1899)

Jagmandir Palace, on the Pichola Lake at Udaipur

Details

William Simpson (1823-1899)
Jagmandir Palace, on the Pichola Lake at Udaipur
signed and dated 'Wm. Simpson 1862' (lower right) and inscribed 'Summer Palace on the lake of Oodaypoor (sic)'
pencil and watercolour with touches of white heightening
14 5/8 x 20 3/8in. (37.1 x 51.7cm.)

Literature

India, Ancient and Modern, London, Day and Son, 1867, pl.VI illustrated colour.

Exhibited

German Gallery, London, 1866.

Lot Essay

Simpson visited Udaipur during his tour of Central India from January to March 1861. Udaipur is the capital of the Rajput State of Mewar and its ruler, the Maharana, is the admitted head of the fraternity of Rajput princes. Simpson's keen artistic eye recognised this city as one of the most picturesque in India. 'Since I have seen this town, ' he wrote 'I have always classed it [Udaipur], Malta and Edinburgh as the three finest cities that I have visited' (The Autobiography etc., op.cit., p.139). The Jagmandir Palace is one of the Rana's summer palaces built on the islands in Lake Pichola. Shah Jahan stayed there for a while in the 1620s when in rebellion against his father Jahangir. Simpson described it as 'beautiful... composed of white marble, to which he [the Rana] often goes in State, accompanied by his hareem...', (India, Ancient and Modern, London, 1866, p.12).

More from Anglo-Indian

View All