A Chatri, Ulwur

1866

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Dominant colour

A Chatri, Ulwur is a 1866 by Louis-Théophile Marie Rousselet, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Louis-Théophile Marie Rousselet
When & what style?: 1866 · Impressionism
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see a stone tower with small windows, rising above a crowd of people in long robes and turbans. Rousselet drew this while traveling in India in the 1860s. He worried his sketches weren’t showing the buildings clearly enough, so he learned photography there—something few Europeans had done. The tower is a *chatri*, a kind of open pavilion common in Indian architecture. If you like this, look up more works in the subject france, 19th century.

The story of this work

Overview

Concerned that his drawings did not do justice to the splendor of India’s monuments, Rousselet learned photography in India that year, a remarkable accomplishment. He proved to be a talented photographer with a sophisticated sense of composition. The scenes in this volume sweep across sites of Sultanate, Rajput, and Mughal power in northern India, from the sacred Hindu city of Varanasi on the Ganges River to Alwar in Rajasthan. Also included are several scenes of industry and portraits of Indian rulers.