Untitled [James Forbes: A Set of Six Engravings of Western India, together with James Phillips’s Monumental View of The Great Banyan at Bombay after James Wales and Forbes]

a) J Shury after James Forbes
Comparative View of Two Principal Pillars in the Excavations at Salsette and Elephanta
1774
Copperplate engraving on laid paper
9 x 12 in (22.86 x 30.48 cm)

This detailed architectural plate compares two exemplary pillars from the cave temples at Salsette (Sas?i) and Elephanta, near Bombay. Forbes—among the earliest British travellers to document these monuments—captured their distinctive forms: the Salsette shaft crowned by a sculpted abacus with elephants supporting a vase, and the fluted Elephanta pillar echoing classical orders yet unmistakably Indian in character. His drawing reflects an eighteenth-century fascination with the supposed affinities between Hindu, Egyptian and Greco-Roman art, a theory later refined by Orientalist scholarship.

b) J Shury after James Forbes
View of Bombay in 1773
Copperplate engraving on laid paper
7.87 x 9.84 in (20 x 25 cm)

A panoramic marine view of Bombay Fort as seen from the harbour, showing sailing vessels approaching the island settlement. The Governor’s House, fortifications, and spires of early colonial architecture stand prominent against a dramatic monsoon sky. Executed from Forbes’s sketches made during his residence (1766–1784), this image captures the city’s emergence as Britain’s western maritime gateway to India. The plate remains a foundational visual record of pre-reclamation Bombay, decades before the Esplanade or the docks were built.

c) J Shury after James Forbes
A View of Bombay, from Malabar Hill, with the Island of Caranjah and Part of the Indian Continent in the Distance
Copperplate engraving on laid paper
7.87 x 9.84 in (20 x 25 cm)

Perhaps the earliest known view from Malabar Hill, this composition looks eastward toward the harbour and the Konkan mainland. Palm groves, cultivated fields, and European villas occupy the foreground, symbolising the transition from indigenous landscape to colonial habitation. Forbes’s panoramic sensibility—rooted in topographical accuracy and romantic sentiment—offers an invaluable record of Bombay’s geography before urban expansion.

d) Charles Heath after James Forbes
View of Bombay Green
Copperplate engraving on laid paper
7.87 x 9.84 in (20 x 25 cm)

Depicting the civic heart of late eighteenth-century Bombay, this scene shows the broad open space then known as the “Bombay Green” (now Horniman Circle). The Church of St. Thomas, completed in 1718, dominates the composition; groups of soldiers, merchants, and local labourers animate the square, illustrating Bombay’s diverse colonial society. Forbes’s portrayal remains one of the most important early depictions of the city’s urban core before the fort walls were dismantled.

e) Charles Heath after James Forbes
A Distant View of the Temple at Alla Bhaug, with Different Natives in the Concan
Copperplate engraving on laid paper
7.87 x 9.84 in (20 x 25 cm)

"Plate 26 from the first volume of James Forbes'"Oriental Memoirs", a work in the form of a series of letters richly illustrated, describing various aspects of nature, people and buildings he met with during his travels in India in the 1760s-70s. Describing the two temples abuilt by the Mahratta chieftain 'Ragojee Agria' and his Dewan Govind Sett, at Alibaug in the western coast of India called the Konkan, Forbes(1749-1819)wrote: 'the outer one a square, well proportioned, covered by a large dome, and adorned at each corner by a lofty spire, composed of cupolas, gradually diminishing to the summit, with appropriate ornaments...the outer temple was dedicated to public worship, the inner exclusively to the brahmins...in front of the temples a spacious area contained a tank lined with hewn stone for the ablutions of the worshippers...the surrounding groves were enlivened by dancing-girls and musicians...the Temple, lake and gardens at Allah Baugh, presented an excellent specimen of modern oriental magnificence'.” (Source: The British Library Board)

f) T Wageman after James Forbes
Parsees at Bombay
Copperplate engraving on laid paper
7.87 x 9.84 in (20 x 25 cm)

This sensitive portrait of a Parsi family—father, mother, and child—stands among palm and plantain trees with a waterwheel in the background. Forbes’s rendering of attire and bearing is among the earliest published depictions of Bombay’s Parsi community, whose role in commerce and civic life was rapidly expanding in the late eighteenth century. The plate’s ethnographic precision and dignity of presentation exemplify the transitional phase between travel documentation and social portraiture in early colonial art.

These engravings appeared across the four quarto volumes of Oriental Memoirs; selected and abridged from a series of familiar letters written during seventeen years residence in India, London, 1813–1815. Executed after Forbes’s on-site drawings, the series remains among the earliest comprehensive visual chronicles of Western India, predating the works of Salt, Daniell, and Grindlay.

g) James Phillips after a painting by James Wales (after a drawing by James Forbes),
Cubbeer Burr, the great banyan tree
20 March 1790
Later hand-coloured etching with engraving on paper
NTK SIZE
Published by James Wales, Wells Walk, Hampstead; London

The printed title (missing) of this work usually reads Cubbeer Burr, the great banyan tree. In fact, the view depicts the Kabirvad Banyan tree on an island in the Narmada River near Bharuch (Broach), Gujarat, which at the time lay within the jurisdiction of the Bombay Presidency. The shorthand (missing from the printed title) “at Bombay” reflects the late-18th-century convention of attaching the Presidency’s name to significant sites, even if geographically distant from the city itself.

This large-scale etching is based on a 1778 drawing by James Forbes, later worked into a painting by Wales in 1789, and here engraved by James Phillips. It was issued in London in 1790 with a dedication to William Hornby, former Governor of Bombay, and to the Bombay Club.

The composition frames the banyan’s immense aerial roots as a vast natural proscenium. Beneath its canopy, ascetic mendicants occupy the shadowed left foreground, while at centre a group of Indian women with musicians approach in procession. To the right, before a pitched marquee, a group of Europeans in 18th-century dress sit at a table, attended by servants, suggesting the colonial practice of camping in “magnificent style” under this celebrated tree. Through the leafy arch, the Narmada river glitters, with cattle at the water’s edge and the silhouette of a domed pavilion beyond.

Contemporary accounts by Forbes describe Kabirvad as measuring over 2,000 feet in circumference, with thousands of aerial roots and the capacity to shelter as many as 7,000 people beneath its shade. By pairing natural wonder with scenes of social exchange, Wales’s print situates the banyan as both a sacred Indian landmark and an imperial emblem. Its dedication to Hornby and the Bombay elite framed the banyan as a colonial trophy — a site of local reverence appropriated as a spectacle of empire.

This print belongs to the earliest generation of large-scale views of India published in Britain, preceding the Daniells’ celebrated Oriental Scenery (1795–1807). Its etched textures convey the monumental presence of the tree with crisp detail, while hand-coloured impressions such as the present example bring out the greens of the foliage and the vivid costumes of its figures. Examples are preserved in the British Museum and the British Library, and the work remains a touchstone in the visual culture of late-18th-century India.

(Set of seven)

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