'Temple near Jeypore. India. Decr. 1878'

Oil painting depicting a temple near Jaipur by Marianne North, dated December 1878.Initially Marianne North (1830-1890) only painted botanical specimens and travelled around the world in search of interesting subject matter. She visited India in 1877-79 and completed over 200 paintings whilst there, painting landscape views as well. Jaipur, the famous pink city of Rajasthan, was established in 1727 by Sawai Jai Singh II (1699-1744). The plan of the town is based on a mandala, a sacred geometric grid, an Indian idea to town planning. The city is surrounded by rocky hills to the north and east and to the north-west the Fort overlooks the city. In her autobiography, 'Recollections of a happy life' of 1892, Marianne North wrote, "The streets of Jaipur are all painted strawberry-cream colour and built at right angles to one another, but the individual houses are most picturesque and oriental in shape, and the stone lacework of the windows is very finely carved and varied in pattern, stone elephants guarding many of the doors...The gardens are lovely, with the stony hills in the background."