Lot Essay
Ghazipur is an old Mughal town on the Ganges; the last major stop up river before Benares. The Daniells stopped there on their journey up river, from 25 to 28 November, 1788. They were busy days, as William's journal makes clear: on 25 November, 'My Uncle made a View or two inside the Gate [of the palace] & myself one of the Outside in the Camera Obscura'; on 27th, they visited some tombs in the Nawab's garden 'which Hodges has made a very incorrect Aquatinta print of'; and on the following day, 'I went near the River and took a View of it from near the place that Hodges sat down to draw it' (Journal). Hodges had visited Ghazipur in July 1781 and made a number of drawings from which he subsequently published three aquatints in his Select Views. These works include a view of the same mosque as is seen here, from the same angle - indeed the composition as a whole is very similar. The frequent references to Hodges's aquatints in William's journal (as in the passages quoted above) make it clear that the Daniells saw some of them before they left Calcutta in August 1788. Evidently those they saw included Hodges's view of this mosque (Select Views, no.31, published in September 1787). The Daniell watercolour is not a direct copy of the Hodges aquatint, but it is very much inspired by it. In their efforts to emulate Hodges, the Daniells frequently chose the same subjects, but no other relation is so direct as in this case. All this is in spite of the frequent criticisms of Hodges made in William's journal - indeed such criticisms should be interpreted in the light of their rivalry. This drawing differs from its model in ways typical of the Daniells: the details, especially in the foreground, are more meticulously drawn, and the scene has a wider range, to include the well, which Hodges omitted. (Curiously, another related drawing, now in the India Office Library, by an anonymous amateur, is a direct copy of Hodges's print.)