Lot 147: Justinian Gantz (1802-53)

A mansion, Madras, with pergola, seen from the garden side
pencil and watercolour with touches of bodycolour and heightened with white
unframed
11 5/8 x 8 1/8 in. (29.5 x 20.6 cm.)

M. Archer, 'Madras's Debt to a Father and Son', Country Life, December 1970, pp. 1191-3, fig. 6, illustrated.

with Appleby Brothers, London, September 1967, where purchased for the present collection. William and Mildred Archer Collection.

This watercolour may have been produced for the owner of the large garden-house it depicts, although Gantz's 'portraits of houses', as he called them in the Calcutta Gazette, are often architectural designs for proposed buildings.
The style of many colonial houses in India was enthusiastically described by William Hodges when he arrived in Madras in 1781: 'They consist of long colonades, with open porticoes, and flat roofs, and offer to the eye an appearance similar to what we conceive of a Grecian city in the age of Alexander', the brightly polished buildings and blue sky delighting the Englishman 'accustomed to the sight of rolling masses of clouds floating in a damp atmosphere' (cited in M. Archer, 1970, op. cit.).

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.