Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Antiquities and Modern and Contemporary Fine Arts | June 2015

a.William Westall 12 October 1781 – 22 January 1850 Entrance of the Great Cave Temple of Elephanta, near Bombay Watercolour on paper, 1803 8.3 x 10.8 in (21.0 x 27.4 cm) b. C. Bently 1805 – 4 September 1854 Entrance of the Great Cave Temple of Elephanta, near Bombay. By C. Bently rpt. in Captain R.M. Grindlays - ‘Scenery, Costumes and Architecture, Chiefly on the Western side of India’, London, 1826-30, plate 29 Coloured engraving, 1826-30 8.1 x 10.0 in (20.5 x 25.5 cm) Provenance Dinesh & Varsha Thacker Collection, Mumbai; purchased from Christie’s, London in 2006 ` 300,000 – 450,000 US$ 5,000 – 7,500 GBP 3,000 – 4,500 Lot of 2 William Purser 1789 – 1852 Aurangabad viewed from the Ruins of the Palace of Aurangzeb (After a drawing by Capt. R.M. Grindlay) Watercolour on paper, c. 1830 8.9 x 11.9 in (22.5 x 30.2 cm) Provenance Dinesh & Varsha Thacker Collection, Mumbai; purchased from Christie’s, London in 2006 ` 300,000 – 450,000 US$ 5,000 – 7,500 GBP 3,000 – 4,500 Lot 8 “Ascending the narrow path where the two hills are knit together, we at length come to a beautiful and rich prospect of the northern part of the island, of the sea, and of the opposite shores of Salsette. Advancing forward, and keeping to the left along the bend of the hill, we gradually mount to an open space, and come suddenly on the grand entrance of a magnificent temple,whose huge massy columns seem to give support to the whole mountain which rises above it. ‘The entrance into this temple, which is entirely hewn out of a stone resembling porphyry, is by a spacious front, supported by two massy pillars and two pilasters, forming three openings, under a thick and steep rock overhung by brushwood and wild shrubs. The long ranges of columns that appear closing on perspective on every side, the flat roof of solid rock that seems to be prevented from falling only by the massy pillars, whose capitals are pressed down and flattened as if by the superincumbent weight, the darkness that obscures the interior of the temple, which is dimly lighted only by the entrances, and the gloomy appearance of the gigantic stone figures ranged along the wall, and hewn, like the whole temple, out of the living rock, joined to the strange uncertainty that hangs over the history of the place, carry the mind back to distant periods, and impress it with that kind of uncertain religious awe with which the grander works of ages of darkness are generally contemplated.’ – William Erskine, rpt. in Capt. R. Grindlay’s Scenery in India 1826-30. ” 7 8 37 Indian Antiquities, Modern & Contemporary Fine Arts