A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s2.9

c14.s2.9

The Ajaṇṭā paintings first became known to Europeans in 1819, but failed to attract much attention until 1843, when Mr. James Fergusson, the historian of architecture, published a description of them and persuaded the Directors of the East India Company to sanction the preparation of copies at the public expense. In pursuance of the orders of the Court, Major Gill, a competent and conscientious artist, was deputed some years later, and continued at work until the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857.¹ The copies then executed, thirty or more in number, were sent home from time to time, and with the exception of five, the last executed, perished in 1866 in a fire at the Crystal Palace, where they were exhibited. Nothing remains of the lost copies except a few small-scale outline engravings in Mrs. Speir's *Ancient India* (1856), and reproductions of them in *Ancient and Mediaeval India* (1869) by the same lady under the name of Manning, and also in the *Notes on the Bauddha Rock-Temples of Ajanta* (1879) by Dr. Burgess.