Untitled (Set of 10 prints on Elephanta Island)
a) Robert Elliott
Entrance to the Cave of Elephanta
1834
Etching and line engraving on paper
Print Size: 5.1 x 7.1 in (13 x 18.2 cm)
Sheet Size: 6.9 x 9.7 in (17 x 24.7 cm)
A straightforward yet influential rendering of the Elephanta cave entrance by Captain Robert Elliott. First issued in 1834, the design became a stock image, reproduced widely in bookplates, periodicals and illustrated volumes throughout the nineteenth century. Its circulation helped establish a standardised iconography of Elephanta in the European imagination.
b) R Brandard after William Daniell
On the Island of Elephanta, with a View towards Bombay Harbour
(Sketched 1793) but published 1835
Steel engraving on paper
Print Size: 4.5 x 5.7 in (11.5 x 14.5 cm)
Sheet Size: 5.1 x 6.4 in (13.2 x 16.5 cm)
Made from studies executed during the Daniells’ extended sojourn in Bombay in 1793, this small steel engraving was issued by William Daniell in 1835 for an emergent English middle-class market hungry for picturesque views of the “exotic East.” The composition sets Elephanta Island in the foreground with Bombay harbour beyond, drawing on the duo’s celebrated pictorial vocabulary forged in Oriental Scenery.
As the prolific uncle–nephew partnership of Thomas and William Daniell were preparing to return to England after nearly a decade in India, news of war at home forced them to remain an extra season in Bombay. They used the interval to sketch the island and its famed “cave temples”—including Kanheri and Elephanta—material that William would later mine. In the 1830s, after a career that arguably eclipsed even that of his illustrious uncle, William was persuaded to revisit unused India sketches and issue them as small steel engravings for the domestic market. The present Elephanta view belongs to that late programme: a scarce later work that revisits the Daniells’ Indian legacy while reframing it for a new audience, its quiet prospect linking the antiquarian glamour of the caves with the maritime panorama of Bombay.
c) J Greig after James Forbes
Interior View of the principal Excavated Temple on the Island of Elephanta
(Sketched 1774), published 1834
Steel engraving on paper
Print Size: 7.5 x 8.8 in (19.3 x 22.5 cm)
Sheet Size: 8.4 x 11.2 in (21.5 x 28.5 cm)
With the ceding of Salsette by the Marathas to the British in the mid-1770s, the region around Bombay began to gain political stability (from an East India Company perspective), which also included Elephanta Island. Right around this time, in 1774, James Forbes, the original artist of the view depicted here, took a guest that had arrived onto the shores of Bombay to the island and built up fascination for what to expect. As they finally entered the cave system, the guest went quiet for quite some time, and Forbes, thinking he had oversold the idea, was relieved to hear his next utterance, which is recorded as thus: "however highly he had raised his imagination, on entering this stupendous scene he was so absorbed in astonishment and delight as to forget where he was." This very same interaction seems to have been captured in the engraving itself!
d) James Basire after a drawing by Captain Isaac Pyke
Antiquities at Elephanta near Bombay
1785
Copper engraving on paper
Print Size: 9.3 x 11.8 in (23.8 x 30 cm)
Sheet Size: 10.6 x 13.8 in (27 x 35.2 cm)
Published as Plate 21 in Vol. VII of Archaeologia; Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Society of Antiquaries, London, 1785
This composite plate records three much-remarked “curiosities” at Elephanta as first sketched by Captain Isaac Pyke in 1712: (i) the celebrated monolithic elephant that gave the island its European name—shown with a smaller elephant carved on its back, a feature noted by early visitors and explicitly described in Dalrymple’s printed abstract of Pyke’s journal; (ii) the so-called “Alexander’s horse” (a weathered stone figure near the path to the caves); and (iii) a Siva li?ga on its pedestal. The small elephant atop the main figure was already observed in the 17th century—John Fryer called the monument “a monstrous elephant… bearing a young one on its back”—and Dalrymple’s Archaeologia text reiterates “an elephant in stone… with another on its back,” precisely as engraved here.
Issued by the Society of Antiquaries, the plate is among the earliest published images to catalogue Elephanta’s exterior sculptures and sacred furnishings for a European audience, fixing details that later suffered damage or loss. The shoreline elephant developed a fissure and ultimately collapsed in the 19th century; it was removed to Bombay’s Victoria Gardens in 1864 and later reassembled, the reconstructed figure now standing in Jijamata Udyaan. As such, this sheet preserves the appearance—and the curious back-borne calf—of the monument at an early date, while also reflecting the empiricist yet speculative lens through which Enlightenment antiquaries first approached India’s antiquities.
Scholars have long discussed the identity of the smaller form—most persuasively as a calf rather than a rider or decorative appendage; Hobson-Jobson’s collation of the Archaeologia plates even notes the little elephant’s trunk descending to touch the head of the larger, a detail visible on Pyke’s engraving and consistent with a mother-and-calf conception.
e) James Basire after a drawing by Captain Isaac Pyke
Plan of the Pagoda at Elephanta
1785
Copper engraving on paper
Print Size: 9.3 x 11.8 in (23.8 x 30 cm)
Sheet Size: 10.6 x 13.8 in (27 x 35.2 cm)
Published as Plate 22 in Vol. VII of Archaeologia; Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Society of Antiquaries, London, 1785
This plate is one of the earliest printed plans of the Great Cave at Elephanta to circulate in Britain. Engraved by James Basire for the Society of Antiquaries, it records the cave’s square hypostyle hall articulated by regular grids of square piers and the flanking side shrines, providing a measured counterpart to the more pictorial “views” of the site that soon followed. The plan was issued in 1785 in Archaeologia (Vol. VII) to illustrate Alexander Dalrymple’s publication of Captain Isaac Pyke’s 1712 journal description of a “pagoda near Bombay”—part of the Society’s concerted effort in the 1780s to document Indian antiquities for a European readership.
As later surveys confirm, Elephanta’s main cave (Cave 1) is a large square mandapa, its roof carried on regularly spaced columns; within the hall sits the free-standing linga shrine with circumambulatory path, while major reliefs—culminating in the famed Sadasiva/Trimurti—animate the walls. The UNESCO summary notes the hall’s c. 27-metre square interior supported by rows of six columns each, consonant with the geometry set down in this eighteenth-century plate. In combining measured draughtsmanship with antiquarian curiosity, Basire’s engraving marks a foundational moment in the archaeological mapping of Elephanta, predating the large-scale 19th-century surveys and the popular printed albums that made the caves widely known.
f) James Basire after a drawing by Captain Isaac Pyke
Pillar & Statue in the Pagoda at Elephanta
1785
Copper engraving on paper
Print Size: 13.6 x 12.2 in (34.7 x 31 m)
Sheet Size: 15.7 x 17.5 in (39.9 x 44.7 cm)
Published as Plate 23 in Vol. VII of Archaeologia; Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Society of Antiquaries, London, 1785
This engraving depicts a sculpted pillar and a multi-faced deity figure inside the great cave temple of Elephanta near Bombay (Mumbai). The pillar, one of many hewn from the living rock, is rendered with an almost classical symmetry; early British visitors likened these supports to “Corinthian pillars,” reflecting an impulse to understand unfamiliar architecture in familiar term. Beside it stands a towering tri-faced idol which 18th-century observers presumed to be a female pagan deity, exemplifying the exotic iconography that both fascinated and puzzled Europeans. In reality, the figure represents a form of the Hindu god Shiva (the celebrated three-headed Trimurti bust at Elephanta), but in 1712 Captain Pyke and his contemporaries could only speculate about its meaning. As one of the first visual records of Elephanta’s interior, the print attests to the British drive to document India’s ancient rock-cut art with empirical detail – note the careful proportions captured by Pyke, a trained cartographer, as he measured and sketched the “spacious room” of the cave. This image’s publication in 1785 provided European audiences a rare glimpse of Indian temple sculpture, feeding Enlightenment-era curiosity about the origins of “Oriental” antiquities. Importantly, it also reveals early misinterpretations: the multiple heads and ornate form of the statue were so alien to classical norms that British antiquaries often labeled such images “monstrous” or bizarre even as they endeavored to record them faithfully. In sum, Pillar & Statue in the Pagoda at Elephanta is a landmark engraving that marries empirical documentation with the era’s cultural biases – a cornerstone in the West’s first attempts to visually catalogue India’s sculptural heritage.
g) James Basire after a drawing by Captain Isaac Pyke
Entrance of the Pagoda at Elephanta
1785
Copper engraving on paper
Plate Size: 9.4 x 7 in (24 x 18 cm)
Sheet Size: 10.6 x 8.4 in (27 x 21.5 xm)
Published as Plate 24 in Vol. VII of Archaeologia; Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Society of Antiquaries, London, 1785
This engraving presents the carved entrance façade of Elephanta’s cave temple, as seen by British explorers in the early 18th century. The view showcases a wide rock-cut opening set into the basalt hillside, approached by a series of steps and flanked by an intricately carved balustrade rail – a feature hewn directly from the cliff to emulate a wooden railing. Pyke’s illustration captures the grand scale and craftsmanship of the entrance: the solid basalt columns and architraves are cut in situ, forming a pillared porch that impressed viewers with its symmetry and engineering. To Europeans of that era, the very concept of an entire temple complex excavated from a single rock mass was astounding. Indeed, British antiquaries marveled that the “pagoda” at Elephanta had been formed by cutting away rock rather than assembling blocks, regarding it as evidence of a sophisticated ancient culture yet one outside the familiar Greco-Roman canon. The engraving conveys this awe – one can sense the depth of the cavernous hall beyond the shadowed threshold, inviting the viewer to imagine venturing into the “curious pagoda.” In 1712, Captain Pyke approached this entrance with a mix of curiosity and caution, armed with a 15-man party for safety due to the feared Maratha pirates offshore. His journal notes the party’s precautions against the notorious Angria pirates (misspelled “Caun Ainge Angery” in the account) who frequented the area. Once inside, Pyke carefully noted architectural details and measurements, laying the groundwork for an accurate scaled plan of the cave (published as a separate plate). Entrance of the Pagoda at Elephanta thus serves as an early architectural record: it documented for the first time in Europe the external aspect of an Indian rock-cut sanctuary. The image’s significance lies not only in its rarity (few Europeans had seen Elephanta’s facade firsthand) but also in its didactic value – for the Society of Antiquaries, it provided tangible evidence of a monument that could rival classical temples in grandeur, yet belonged to India’s antiquity. This engraving helped convey the monumentality of Elephanta to a European audience, dramatizing the threshold between the familiar outside world and the mysterious cave interior filled with unfamiliar gods.
The prints d),e),f) and g) comes along with text from the book Archaeologia; Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Society of Antiquaries, London, 1785 to support the prints.
h),i),j) James Basire after John Carter
Alto Relievos in the Collection of S Ashton Levr found in a Cave near Bombay (three variant plates; one with three heads, two with single heads)
1785 (each)
Copper engraving on paper (each)
Print Size: 9.7 x 7.4 in (24.7 x 19 cm) (each)
Sheet Size: 10.6 x 8.3 in (27 x 21.2 cm) (each)
Published as Plate 25, 26 and 27 in Vol. VII of Archaeologia; Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Society of Antiquaries, London, 1785
These 3 finely cut eighteenth-century engravings are among the earliest printed records of Indian cave sculpture to circulate widely in Britain. Drawn by John Carter and engraved by the eminent James Basire for the Society of Antiquaries’ journal Archaeologia, they reproduce heads in high relief (“alto-relievos”) said to have been found “in a cave near Bombay” and, by the 1780s, preserved in the collection of Sir Ashton Lever. Lever’s vast, quasi-public museum—the famed Holophusicon—was an encyclopaedic display of natural history and “curiosities” that helped shape metropolitan knowledge of distant cultures before its dispersal at auction in 1806.
While the captions remain non-specific, the stylistic coiffures and physiognomies correspond closely to fragments from the Elephanta complex and related Bombay-region cave sites (Jogeshwari/Mandapeshwar/Salsette), where sixth–eighth-century reliefs in hard basalt present both Shaivite deities and attendant figures in deeply carved, monumental heads. In the eighteenth century, nomenclature and attributions were often fluid; “cave near Bombay” was a convenient shorthand for Elephanta and its satellite caves, then only loosely differentiated in European accounts.
ELEPHANTA IN PRINT: TEN LANDMARK ENGRAVINGS DOCUMENTING THE ISLAND’S ANTIQUITIES AND ICONOGRAPHY, 1785–1835
This group brings together some of the earliest and most influential engraved views of the celebrated rock-cut temples of Elephanta Island, issued between 1785 and 1835 in London. Collectively, they chart the evolution of European encounters with the site—from the empirical surveys of early Company officers, through the antiquarian fascination of the Enlightenment, to the picturesque commodification of the Daniells and their successors.
Among the earliest are the seven engravings published in Archaeologia VII (1785) by the Society of Antiquaries after Captain Isaac Pyke’s pioneering visit of 1712. These include the dramatic Entrance of the Pagoda at Elephanta, which first conveyed to Europe the monumentality of the rock-cut façade; the composite Antiquities at Elephanta near Bombay, recording the monolithic elephant (with calf on its back), the weathered “Alexander’s horse,” and a li?ga—landmarks long since damaged or displaced; and Pillar & Statue in the Pagoda at Elephanta, presenting a tri-faced deity alongside a column likened by contemporaries to a Corinthian order. Engraved most likely by James Basire, these plates served as didactic records for the Society’s readership, providing both empirical detail and a stimulus for speculative interpretation of India’s antiquity.
By the 1770s, Elephanta had entered a new phase of Company antiquarian interest. James Forbes, later famed for his Oriental Memoirs, made his first sketch of the cave interior in 1774. His composition, engraved in 1834 as the Interior of the Great Cave at Elephanta, Bombay, dramatizes the awe of his European companion, “absorbed in astonishment and delight” upon entering the cavernous hall—a vignette that became emblematic of early responses to India’s monumental rock-cut architecture.
The following decade witnessed the arrival of the Daniells, whose extended stay in Bombay in 1793–94 furnished sketches of Elephanta alongside their monumental Oriental Scenery. William Daniell’s later On the Island of Elephanta, with a View towards Bombay Harbour, published in 1835, mines those earlier studies to present a small steel engraving for the growing middle-class market. The view, with Elephanta foregrounding a maritime panorama of Bombay, reframes the caves within the idiom of the picturesque, marrying antiquarian curiosity with a modern, consumable format.
Finally, Robert Elliott’s Entrance to the Cave of Elephanta, first published in 1834, distils the iconography of the façade into a clear, reproducible image. Reissued widely in illustrated volumes and periodicals, Elliott’s design became the stock nineteenth-century representation of the site, codifying the monument’s visual identity in the European imagination.
Taken together, the ten prints demonstrate the shifting registers through which Elephanta was mediated for British audiences over half a century: from architectural survey and Enlightenment record, to romantic anecdote, and finally to the commodified picturesque. They preserve details long lost on the island itself—notably the monolithic elephant with calf—and constitute a foundational corpus for the Western iconography of Elephanta.
(Set of ten)
This work will be shipped unframed.
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