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JOHN AND JUSTINIAN GANTZ John Gantz was official draughtsmen for the East India Company, producing a series of maps, now in the India Office Library, as well as topographical and architectural watercolours. His son Justinian Gantz followed closely in his father's footsteps, working as a Company draftsman and producing watercolours of colonial residences in Madras and its environs. It is possible that both worked as architects and that their watercolours depict houses built to their designs, certainly in a list of March 1819, John Gantz was listed as 'Architect. Native of India.'(see M. Archer, British Drawings in the India Office Library, London, 1969, vol. II, p. 602) and Justinian was later to produce A Manual of Instruction on the practice of Architectural Drawing. Both worked for the family lithographic press and in 1841 Justinian, and his brother Julius Walter, published a series of prints devoted to the buildings of Madras. The work of father and son has often been confused. Both favour compositions with low horizon and expansive sky, but a classical manner is often discernable in John Gantz's work while Justinian has a rather lighter touch, described by Mildred Archer as 'more lively and delicate, often depicting trees bending in the wind, and figures in movement' ('Madras's Debt to a Father and Son', Country Life, December 1970, pp. 1191-1193)

John Gantz (1772-1853)

Resting palanquin-bearers, near the Guindy Palace

Details

John Gantz (1772-1853)
Resting palanquin-bearers, near the Guindy Palace
inscribed and dated 'Drawn by John Gantz./1826' (lower right on the wash-line mount), and further inscribed 'Salaverum (?) Hills taken from the Guindy Palace' (on the reverse)
pencil and watercolour, sheet extended along the upper and lower edge
11 7/8 x 20¾ in. (30.1 x 52.6 cm.)

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The Guindy National Park is situated several miles to the south-west of Madras. Within the park is Raj Bhavan or the Guindy Palace, the country residence of the Governors of Madras from 1817.

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