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Details
Jos M. Gonzalves (fl.1826 - c.1842)
View from the Town Hall, Bombay
lithograph, c.1833, printed by the General Lithographic Press, Bombay, on thin Whatman paper laid down on card, small repaired tears not affecting image
P.353 x 525mm.
A RARE AND IMPORTANT WORK by Gonzalves, a Portuguese artist from Goa, known for two sets of lithographs which comprise an early record of the Fort of Bombay (see Views of Bombay, Abbey 457). This print (not part of these recorded sets) shows Bombay Green (now Horniman Circle) with its border marked out with newly-planted trees, from the viewpoint of the steps of the Town Hall, looking across the green to the bell-tower of St.Thomas's Cathedral, with the monument to Marquess Cornwallis to the left and a view of Churchgate Street leading down to Church Gate to the right. Also included in this view are the Secretaries' Offices and theatre, on the far right. This entirely European area, with the East India Company's buildings to the north of the Green, had become a cotton market in the late 18th Century, and a busy focus of trade in cotton with China by the early 1800s, resulting in the expansion of the Fort and its population (Ed. Rohatgi, Godrej & Mehrotra, Bombay to Mumbai, Changing Perspectives, London, 1997).
View from the Town Hall, Bombay
lithograph, c.1833, printed by the General Lithographic Press, Bombay, on thin Whatman paper laid down on card, small repaired tears not affecting image
P.353 x 525mm.
A RARE AND IMPORTANT WORK by Gonzalves, a Portuguese artist from Goa, known for two sets of lithographs which comprise an early record of the Fort of Bombay (see Views of Bombay, Abbey 457). This print (not part of these recorded sets) shows Bombay Green (now Horniman Circle) with its border marked out with newly-planted trees, from the viewpoint of the steps of the Town Hall, looking across the green to the bell-tower of St.Thomas's Cathedral, with the monument to Marquess Cornwallis to the left and a view of Churchgate Street leading down to Church Gate to the right. Also included in this view are the Secretaries' Offices and theatre, on the far right. This entirely European area, with the East India Company's buildings to the north of the Green, had become a cotton market in the late 18th Century, and a busy focus of trade in cotton with China by the early 1800s, resulting in the expansion of the Fort and its population (Ed. Rohatgi, Godrej & Mehrotra, Bombay to Mumbai, Changing Perspectives, London, 1997).