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ItemID: #55940
Cost: $3,500.00

Pagoda at Ramisseram. FROM: Twenty-Four Views Taken in St. Helena, the Cape, India

Henry Salt

MAGNIFICENT HAND-COLORED AQUATINT “PAGODA AT RAMISSERAM,” FROM HENRY SALT’S ELEPHANT FOLIO VIEWS IN INDIA, 1809

SALT, Henry. “Pagoda at Ramisseram.” FROM: Twenty Four Views Taken in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, Abyssinia & Egypt. London: William Miller, 1809. Original hand-colored aquatint, measuring 25 by 18-1/2 inches; beautifully framed; entire piece measures 34-1/2 by 28 inches. $3500.

Splendid, large hand-colored aquatint of the Ramanathaswamy temple, Plate IX from Salt’s folio views of India, Egypt, Ceylon, Abyssinia, the Cape of Good Hope, and St. Helena, engraved by John Bluck.

In June 1802, Viscount Valentia (George Annesley) left England on the Minerva, for a Grand Tour of the East and “the first British mission to Abyssinia… to conclude an alliance to obtain a port in the Red Sea in case France, under Napoleon, should seize Egypt” (Abbey 515). As his official artist and secretary for the tour, Valentia appointed artist Henry Salt, who had recently finished his training with the topographical draughtsman and diarist, Joseph Farington. This wonderful plate by Salt depicts the Ramanathaswamy temple, on the island of Rameswaram at the extreme southeast of the Indian peninsula. The site has strong associations with Rama’s return from Sri Lanka and with the worship of Siva. Valentia and Salt returned to England in 1806 and set about producing the Twenty Four Views Taken in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, Abyssinia & Egypt. The engraver of Plate IX, John Bluck, is most firmly associated with the famous London publisher, Rudolph Ackermann. From 1812 to 1816 Ackermann commissioned Bluck to work on at least four of his finest sets of aquatinted views, including Westminster Abbey (1812). Salt eventually became British Consul-General in Egypt, where he died at the age of 47. See Tooley 440.

Image in pristine condition with colors true. Beautifully framed.

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