Thomas and William Daniell were perhaps no geniuses but, they had sufficient talent and application to take an honourable place among their fellow artists.
The uncle and nephew pair of Thomas and William Daniell landed in Calcutta 200 years ago in 1786 and for seven years, explored India as few others before them had done. Their sketches and paintings encompass all that is picturesque in the country, from the ghats of Varanasi to the waterfalls of the south. This is the story of their discovery of India
The Daniells found Calcutta a grand subject. Soon after settling down, Thomas inserted an advertisement in The Calcutta Gazette announcing his intention to publish a set of 12 views of Calcutta for 12 gold mohurs for sub-scribers. Thomas worked hard on the project and completed the series in 1788. These were some of the earliest street views of Calcutta. But, as Thomas himself recorded, his first major work in India, though it earned him fame, gave him "much fatigue and no profit." The art of acquatint, which was new in India, attracted Thomas. He and William began work on these Calcutta paintings using such a method. The series came up to the mark in terms of painting, but had grave printing defects. Thomas was not happy with this, and wrote to an artist friend in England, "It will appear a very poor performance in your land, I fear. You must look upon it as a Bengalee work. You know, I was obliged to stand painter, engraver, copper-smith, printer and printer's devil myself." Nevertheless the work is truly representative of the Daniells, for not only did they do all of the work themselves, but it also proved to be one of the finest recordings of a people in their native milieu. Each of the prints were 20.5 x 17.75". The 12 views were: Front Street, Old Mayor's Court, The Old Great Tank, Cheringhee, The River, Old Court House, The Esplanade, Government House and St John's Church. The complete set then cost 12 mohurs, and was sold in London for £24 as late as in 1939. Such views of the city were not new. William Baillie had already issued a set of 12 coloured views of Calcutta in 1784. The size of these paintings was 18 x 24" and they were sold in London for a mere £12 in 1936. Even after the Daniells, artist’s continued to make prints of Calcutta. James Baillie Frazer issued a set of 24 coloured lithographs titled Views of Calcutta and its Environs in 1826. The engraved surfaces were 16.75 x 11" and they were sold for £35 in London in 1939. In 1883, William Wood issued 28 hand-coloured lithographic views of Calcutta. Their size was 14.5x 18.5" and they were issued in five parts. One such set was sold for £18 in London in 1936. Charles D'Oyley published another set titled Views in Calcutta and its Environs in 1848, it comprised 27 coloured lithographic views, the largest measuring 33 x 13.5" and the smallest, 11 x 7.5". One such set was sold in London in 1939 for only £24. Despite the presence of so many other artists, the Daniells were immensely popular. Now, of course, the prices of their prints have skyrocketed. The production of acquatints, however, was slow work. The Daniells, in order to support themselves, were obliged to accept miscellaneous routine work such as the repair and cleaning of oil paintings of both private individuals as well as the East India Company. Though William Daniell had come along as a companion and as an assistant, he quickly learnt painting and even mastered the art of making acquatints. In later years, he himself recorded on canvas many of his impressions of the country.
On 29th August, 1788, uncle and nephew set off on their grand painting expedition of India. It lasted for three years and covered practically all the important cities and pilgrim sites of India. It was a period of ceaseless travel and meticulous painting. It should be observed that the Daniells often made use of what was then known as the 'camera obscura' technique. A forerunner of the photo-graphic camera, this was a device for tracing images, consisting of a box set in a bellows, with one side open, over which a curtain was hung. It had a convex lens at one end and a small, adjustable mirror at the other, which threw an image upon a sheet of paper placed at the base of the box for the draughtsman to trace the outline. The Daniells returned to Calcutta in the autumn of 1791. On January 5, 1792, The Calcutta Gazette announced a lottery of the original paintings of Thomas and William Daniell, which they had done on their recent tour of the country. As many as 150 of their works were put on display in the rooms of the Old Harmonic Tavern in Lalbazar. On 1st.March the draw took place. The lottery attracted a large crowd although, as young William wrote to his mother later people were more ready to admire uncle's paintings than to buy them." The Daniells finally departed from India in late 1793, arriving in England on September 7, 1794.
In London, they hired rooms at 37, Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, and immediately launched upon their long-cherished project of publishing their monumental work, to be called Oriental Scenery. The work, started in 1795, was completed in 1808, and is a fabulous collection of acquatint views of Indian scenes. It is divided into six parts, each containing 24 assorted views. These were issued in elephant folios and the engraved surface of each plate was 24 x 18". An octavo-sized volume of text was also issued with each volume. The complete set was priced at only Rs 2,000 in 1937. In 1975, it was sold at an auction at Sotheby's for Rs 1,00,000. The last copy to be imported to India was in 1961, by KUMARS Antiquarian, Calcutta, ‘at a cost of Rs 20,000.
Thomas Daniell was born in Kingston-on-Thames in 1749. His origins were humble: his father was Lessee of the Swan Inn at Chertsey. Thomas began his career as a hod-boy, assisting his brother, a bricklayer, by carrying bricks on a trough. Thomas would have become a bricklayer too, had it not been for the sagacity of his parents, who, sensing his discontent apprenticed him in 1763 to a coach builder. This was a job that interested Thomas, as it required a sense of colour. Moreover, it required a thorough knowledge of paints and varnishes, which was to stand him in good stead later. In 1770, after completing his apprenticeship, he worked for several years with Charles Cotton, then coach painter to George III and later founder member of the Royal Academy. Not merely satisfied with the painting of coaches, Thomas soon turned to painting watercolours. In 1772, he exhibited a painting depicting flowers at the Royal Academy and the next year, entered the Royal Academy School and proved his worth by having his paintings accepted by the committee of the Royal Academy year after year. This was no mean achievement, considering the fact that painters such as Joshua Reynolds, Gains-borough, Sandby, Romney and Copley were the established artists of that time.
Thomas and William Daniell were, as their biographer Thomas Sutton observed, totally sincere towards their medium. Each subject they painted, be it a Calcutta street or the caves at Salsette, was depicted with unfailing critical observation. They had an acute sense of observation and insight. Paying a posthumous tribute to Thomas and William Daniell, in the Calcutta Monthly Magazine commented, "……(from the paintings) one may almost feel the warmth of the Indian sky, the water seems to be in actual motion and the animals, trees and plants are studies for naturalists."
Photographs: KUMARS Antiquarian