FRASER, James Baillie (1783–1856)

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“A finely detailed and richly hand-coloured view of Chitpore Road, one of the principal thoroughfares of early nineteenth-century Calcutta. Fraser places the architectural mass of the celebrated Black Pagoda prominently at the right while filling the foreground with an animated cross-section of everyday urban life: pedestrians, vendors, animals and groups moving along the road.

The combination of monumental architecture and street activity is characteristic of Fraser’s Calcutta series. Rather than depicting the city simply as a collection of European colonial buildings, his views record both its Indian architecture and the extraordinary density and variety of its street life.

James Baillie Fraser was a Scottish traveller, writer and amateur artist whose Indian drawings produced some of the most accomplished topographical views of the early nineteenth century.

His Views of Calcutta and its Environs, published in London in 1824–26, is regarded as one of the major aquatint plate books devoted to colonial Calcutta. Fraser supplied the original drawings, which were translated into aquatint by accomplished professional engravers including Robert Havell Jr. and F. C. Lewis.”

Reference: Fraser, James Baillie. Views of Calcutta and its Environs. London, 1824–26. Abbey, J. R. Travel in Aquatint and Lithography, 1770–1860 — Fraser’s Indian plate books are important entries in the standard bibliography of British colour-plate travel books.