Drawings of the Taj Mahal and Agra monuments commissioned by Woman Maria Nugent within the early nineteenth century
We’d suppose that an album measuring a metre in size could be a cumbersome factor to journey with, however it will in all probability be made more easy if you happen to had “100 boats, 87 elephants, 355 camels, 1,033 bullocks, and greater than 3,000 attendants” to help you (Cohen 2014, xxxii). Woman Maria Nugent (1771-1834) owned an album that contained twenty-five fantastically illustrated drawings of the Taj Mahal and surrounding buildings in Agra and which is now within the British Library. On visiting Agra in 1812, she said her intent to fee the set, ‘‘I imply to have drawings of each factor – the attractive Taaje specifically” (Nugent 2014, 164). Most of the drawings had been folded to suit inside the unique album. For conservation causes, the album was unbound and the drawings had been flattened and individually mounted.
View of the Taj Mahal from the south-west, c 1812. Watercolour on paper, 67 x 100 cm. British Library, Stowe Or 17A, folio 2.
In 1812, Woman Maria Nugent undertook a tour throughout northern India, surrounded by the retinue talked about above. She was accompanying her husband, Sir George Nugent (1757-1849), who had been appointed commander-in-chief by the East India Firm (EIC) in 1811. Whereas in publish, his yearly wage totalled £20,000, amounting to the second highest-paying place within the British Empire on the time (Cohen 2014, xx). Woman Nugent was not a novice traveller; she had beforehand lived in Jamaica, the place her husband served as governor from 1801 to 1806. She is thought primarily for the journey writings she penned throughout these voyages, particularly these documenting her keep in Jamaica, which have been critically studied for her views on race, gender and slavery (Nelson 2016).
Whereas in India, Woman Nugent amassed an enormous assortment of artwork. It could appear, nonetheless, that certainly one of her acquaintances was not impressed by the drawings she commissioned of the Taj Mahal. In a letter to her shut pal Woman Temple, Woman Nugent writes “I had a letter from her [Lady Hood] as we speak dated Agra. She is delighted with that Place and bids me burn my Drawings of the Taje as no pencil can ever signify something half so lovely” (Cohen 2014, 293).
View of the octagonal display across the tombs of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal from the south, c 1812. Watercolour on paper, 67.5 by 96.5 cm. British Library, Stowe Or 17a, folio 10.
However Woman Hood’s evaluation, the drawings reveal a cautious understanding of each the structure and ornamentation of Mughal buildings. The watercolour of the mausoleum of I’timad al-Daula meticulously data the intricate marble screens and vibrant inlay work discovered on the outer partitions of the constructing. Regardless of their stage of element, the works won’t have been drawn from direct remark. As artwork historian J.P. Losty notes, Indian artists usually labored from present drawings; he suggests one or two artists would have drawn the buildings from life, possible creating a number of copies, with following artists working from these earlier examples (Losty 2011, 14). Though many architectural drawings of Agra have survived, the names of only a few artists working on this style are identified as we speak, probably the most celebrated being Latif (fl. 1820s), who’s talked about in Fanny Parks’s Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque. For a set of Latif’s drawings on the library, see Add Or 1791-1808.
Element of the outside of the tomb of I’timad al-Daula, c.1812. Watercolour on paper. British Library, Stowe Or 17a, folio 19.
The artist behind Woman Nugent’s drawings is sadly unidentified, however was possible a draughtsman working in Agra, whose patronage – like many others – had shifted from the Mughal courts to the East India Firm. It’s doable that a number of artists contributed to the set, as there’s a vary of watermarks throughout the folios (Whatman, Russel & Co, Hayes & Smart; 1790-1805). Among the earliest British residents in Agra had been Firm engineers, who started using Indian artists in mapmaking and architectural draughtsmanship. By 1825, standardised units of the monuments of Agra, produced on smaller sheets of low-quality paper, would develop into staples of the vacationer commerce (Archer 1972, 169). For an instance, see the postcard-sized watercolours that Woman Florentia Sale used for instance her private pocket book when residing in Agra from 1832 to 1833: Mss Eur B360.
The drawings collected by Woman Nugent, nonetheless, are of a unique nature and exceptionally massive. Among the folios file the costs paid, and at 15 to 30 rupees per drawing, they’d have been an costly fee.
Inlaid pietra dura work on the highest of the plinth across the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, c 1812. Watercolour on paper, 65cm x 99.5cm. British Library, Stowe Or 17a, folio 9.
Seventeen of the twenty-five drawings are inscribed with the costs paid, with 5 of these inscriptions bearing initials. The cataloguing means that these are possible the initials of the agent Woman Nugent used for the fee. Though the library’s cataloguing initially transcribed the initials as ‘R.R’, shut inspection reveals that they’re really inscribed ‘P.P’. This may clearly be seen when evaluating the ‘P.P’ initials to the way in which the ‘R’ in rupees is written. This new data leads us to a possible avenue for uncovering the id behind the ‘P.P’ initials. A comparable assortment of drawings depicting the monuments in Agra could be discovered on the V&A: Fifteen drawings of Mughal structure and decorative element on Mughal monuments at Agra. | Unknown | V&A Discover The Collections (vam.ac.uk). These had been commissioned by a Colonel Pownoll Phipps, Superintendent of Constructing within the Decrease Provinces from 1816 to 1822. Apparently, Woman Nugent’s journal data her assembly a Captain Phipps a couple of days after leaving Agra. We could be sure that she is referring to the Pownoll Phipps of the V&A album, as Woman Nugent mentions his imminent marriage to his second spouse, Sophia Matilda Arnold (1785-1828). On the time of their assembly in 1812, Phipps was stationed in Agra as Fort-Adjutant and Barrack-Grasp and had been made Captain within the military two years prior (Phipps 1894, 81).
Inscription discovered on the reverse of Stowe Or 17A, folio 6, which reads ‘15 Rs PP’.
Two different artworks from Woman Nugent’s assortment could be discovered on the library (Add Or 2595 and Add Or 2600) and an extra 15 work have surfaced at public sale over the past 60 years, with many extra described in her journals. For most up-to-date sale of artworks from Woman Nugent’s assortment, together with a portrait she commissioned of herself, see the Bonhams Islamic and Indian Artwork Sale, 11 June 2020: Bonhams : Islamic and Indian Art.
Her most in depth fee, nonetheless, stays the set of views in Agra. She selected to current this very album to her relative, Richard Temple, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776–1839), upon her return to England. Woman Nugent’s present is recorded in a companion quantity, itemizing all of the inscriptions current on the Taj Mahal. A flyleaf tucked in the back of the manuscript comprises a handwritten excerpt of Woman Nugent’s journal with a dedication on the high studying, “Extract from a journal written by Woman Nugent by whom these drawings got to the Marquis of Buckingham.”
Flyleaf in the back of Stowe Or 17b, containing a handwritten excerpt from Woman Nugent’s journal
All through her journal, Woman Nugent expresses her intentions to present her whole assortment to her youngsters; it’s curious then that the Agra album was not additionally destined for them. The Duke of Buckingham (referred to as the Marquess of Buckingham in 1813) was one of many Nugents’ closest buddies and acted as a guardian to their youngsters whereas they had been in India. He was additionally the son of Sir George Nugent’s most influential connection, his patron and benefactor, George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham (1753–1813). It was by means of the first Marquess of Buckingham’s affect that Sir George Nugent was appointed as governor of Jamaica and commander-in-chief in India (Cohen 2014, xvii). Woman Nugent’s album of drawings is due to this fact, in a way, a thanks present, used to solidify her and her husband’s private community.
Reward-giving appears to have performed an vital position in Woman Nugent’s gathering practices. All through her keep in India, she is receiving items of drawings from each Indian dignitaries and EIC officers. For example, the Nawab of Awadh, Saadat Ali Khan II (r.1798-1814), sends Woman Nugent 4 drawings for her assortment, and in flip, she items him a Coalport porcelain dessert service. Her journal additionally describes items within the type of meals, jewelry, gem stones, hookahs, muslins, shawls, flowers, and so on. Many of those items had been offered throughout official visits to Indian dignitaries, the place she participated in gift-giving rituals that had their roots within the Mughal courts and which had been later co-opted by the EIC. Whereas she may hold the items of meals, the jewels and objects of worth had been to be returned to the EIC treasury, the place they had been both re-gifted to different Indian dignitaries or offered to fund different items (Cohen 2014, xxxv). Her gathering practices due to this fact proof her participation within the motion of objects from the private and non-private spheres of empire, and illustrate how the alternate of products may create and solidify networks each on a private stage, and alongside imperial strains.
Nicole Ioffredi, Print Room Coordinator and Cataloguer, Visible Arts part 
Bibliography:
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Bonhams. (31 March 2020). Islamic and Indian Artwork Together with Fashionable and Modern South Asian Artwork.
Cohen, A. (2014). Woman Nugent’s East India journal: a vital version. New Delhi: Oxford College Press.
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Losty, J. P. (2011). “Architectural Drawings by Agra Draughstmen” in Imperial Previous: India 1600-1800. Francesca Galloway.
Maria Nugent, Woman. (2014) Woman Nugent’s East India journal: a vital version. (A. Cohen, Ed.). New Delhi: Oxford College Press.
Nelson, C. (2016). ‘I’m the one girl!’: the racial dimensions of patriarchy and the containment of white ladies in James Hakewill’s A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica. The Journal of Transatlantic Research, 14 (2), pp 126-138.
Phipps, P. W. (1894). The Lifetime of Colonel Pownoll Phipps.
Simon Ray. (November 2020). Indian & Islamic Works of Artwork.