Samuel Prout
Cootub Minar, Delhi
Original 19th c. Engraving (Engraved by Ebenezer Challis); printed in c. 1858
27 x 18 cms / 10.8 x 7” app.
Non-exportable antiquity. Cannot be exported out of India.
(The work will be shipped without a frame. Framing is available on request.)
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The print showcases the Qutab Minar alongside some other monuments and ruins thereof within the larger Qutb complex like Alai Darwaza, and the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque.
Samuel Prout, who did not draw this on site, is said to have transformed Captain R. N. Elliot's actual field-sketch (perhaps from early 1820s) into a finished picturesque drawing. Prout was one of Britain's leading architectural landscape artists, famous for rendering Gothic and historic buildings.
It was then engraved by Challis and first appeared in 1833 in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book. The engraving was reproduced in The Indian Empire (Illustrated), by Robert Montgomery Martin; Vol. 3 (London: The London Printing and Publishing Company, c. 1858). The current plate is from this volume.
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Condition Report: In good condition overall: no major damage or tears. Some foxing, as clearly visible in the images. Some folds and minor tears and uneven edges along the right side where the plate was bound to the book.