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拍品專文
Simpson first visited Ajanta in January 1862. His watercolour of Robert Gill copying the Ajanta frescoes (see Mildred Archer, Visions of India, 1986, pl. 102) shows the interior of one of these ancient and extraordinary monuments.
The caves were discovered in 1819 by a party of British army officers on a tiger hunt in the forest of western Deccan. Their pursuit of their prey led them to higher altitudes, to this series of thirty caves, which disclosed ornately carved interiors. Originally intended as Buddhist retreats, they also contained works of art and sculpture that represented Buddhist religious themes. Of the Ajanta caves, five are chaityas or prayer halls, and the rest are viharas or monastries, and they can be dated roughly to the 1st or 2nd centuries B.C. During the Gupta period (5th and 6th centuries A.D.) many more caves were added to the original group.
A photograph of the same cave and entrance appears in H. Zimmer, The Art of Indian Asia, New York, 1954, vol. II, pl. 178.
The caves were discovered in 1819 by a party of British army officers on a tiger hunt in the forest of western Deccan. Their pursuit of their prey led them to higher altitudes, to this series of thirty caves, which disclosed ornately carved interiors. Originally intended as Buddhist retreats, they also contained works of art and sculpture that represented Buddhist religious themes. Of the Ajanta caves, five are chaityas or prayer halls, and the rest are viharas or monastries, and they can be dated roughly to the 1
A photograph of the same cave and entrance appears in H. Zimmer, The Art of Indian Asia, New York, 1954, vol. II, pl. 178.