One of the longest objects in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art, the 31 x 1128 cm scroll ‘Lucknow from the Gomti’ is on public display for the first time as part of the exhibition “Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850”. Featuring a panoramic view of the city of Lucknow from across Gomti river, the work made between 1821 and 1826 in British and India techniques comprises 33 sheets of paper glued together to form the panel executed in watercolour, gouache and gold. It reportedly took two years of conservation before being exhibited.

Within a border of black and gold, the names of the places depicted are mentioned in Hindustani underneath. It is accompanied by a “description of the panoramic view of Lucknow,” in four pages in pen and black ink. Dated 1826, the manuscript provides English transcriptions of “the names corresponding with the Hindostany ones, written underneath”.

The catalogue note shares a description of the work by research curator Stephen Markel from India’s Fabled City — The Art of Courtly Lucknow. He notes, “Presumably made for the same British visitor whose handwritten notes identifying the buildings accompanied the scroll… The artist employed European-style perspective in his depiction of this [the Shah Najaf Imambara] and several other buildings, many presented obliquely as they must have appeared from the Gomti River. The scroll is, in fact, a fairly accurate topographical representation of Lucknow as viewed from the Gomti and a valuable guide to the buildings that have since disappeared.”

Commenting on the details, Markel adds, “The central portion of the scroll is particularly interesting in depicting the riverine buildings that would eventually become incorporated into the Bara Chattar Manzil Palace complex… The artist of the Yale scroll attempted to depict an accurate view of the city for his European patron. This concern, in addition to the style of the painting, is typical of the many ‘Company-school’ works — so called for their obvious adaptations to European visual tastes — that depict Indian architectural monuments.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication edited by curators Laurel O Peterson and Holly Shaffer, featuring more than 100 objects drawn primarily from the YCBA collection, including architectural drafts, burnished opaque watercolours and hand-coloured aquatints, among others. The brochure notes, “The artists featured here came from many different backgrounds. Some trained in art schools in Britain, others in Indian courts, Chinese workshops, or military institutes. In their artistic exchanges, they combined regional methods with new materials and techniques. They interacted in places where the Company sought and claimed power.”