The Great Mosque of Delhi, India. Novr. 1878

Oil painting on paper of the Great Mosque at Delhi by Marianne North (1830-1890), dated November 1878. A number of cities have been built in the vicinity of Delhi on the banks of the Jumna. The Emperor Shah Jahan made it his capital in 1638 and built the new city of Shajahanabad, now known as Old Delhi, in the following ten years. Delhi's Jami Masjid is the largest mosque in India and Shah Jahan's last great building. Marianne North visited India in 1877-79 and completed over 200 paintings whilst there. She wrote in Volume II of 'Recollections a Happy Life' (1892), "At last I got to Delhi...The Royal City was a grand place, and quite came up to all I had heard of it. The first afternoon I was driven around Delhi I saw the grand simple form of the huge mosque against a deep orange sunset sky".