HODGES, William (1744–1797)

This evocative aquatint depicts the Pass of Sicri Gully, a rugged mountain pass traversed by William Hodges during his travels through northern India. A winding track leads the viewer through a dramatic landscape of wooded hills and rocky escarpments toward the ruins of a small hilltop fort or watchtower overlooking the valley below. Two travellers pause beside the road in the foreground, lending a human scale to the vast and untamed scenery.

Unlike his architectural studies of India’s celebrated monuments, Hodges here turns his attention to the picturesque qualities of the natural landscape. The composition demonstrates his remarkable ability to balance topographical accuracy with atmospheric effects, using broad skies, receding hills and carefully observed vegetation to create a sense of depth and tranquillity. Such views reflected the growing eighteenth-century appreciation for the sublime and picturesque, while simultaneously documenting regions that were little known to European audiences.

Drawn during Hodges’ journeys through India between 1780 and 1783, the scene was engraved by William Byrne and published in 1787 in Select Views in India. The series represented one of the earliest and most influential collections of aquatints devoted to the Indian subcontinent, helping establish Hodges as a pioneer of British landscape art in India and paving the way for later artists, including Thomas and William Daniell.

Reference: William Hodges, Select Views in India, Drawn on the Spot, in the Years 1780, 1781, 1782, and 1783, London, 1780s; Abbey, Travel in Aquatint and Lithography, no. 416.