Circa 1807/08

Watercolour and pencil on paper, framed

19.4 by 27.5 cm.

One of Charles Ramus Forrest’s beautiful watercolours of his travels up the Ganges and Jumna, the account of which he later published as ‘A Picturesque Tour Along the Rivers Ganges and Jumna’ (Ackerman, 1824, plate XI). The subject is a village and ‘pagoda’ which Forrest observed just below Patna near the town of Azimabad.

A soldier and amateur artist, Forrest recorded and illustrated his travels as an official of the East India Company copying the detail of the landscape attentively and often colouring them in situ in order to preserve the inspiration of the moment.

Forrest gives an account of this precise moment in his published work. On 2 December 1807, he set out from Calcutta, passing through various towns along the river courses, including Bhagalpur, Monghyr and Patna. A few miles below Patna, he "passed a very prettily situated village, with its pagoda of a most picturesque form, its ghaut of the red stone, and its native Hindoos performing their ablutions in the sacred stream of the Ganges. The varied forms and tints of the foliage surrounding this romantic spot give a good relief and effect to the white buildings, as may be seen in the annexed view".