Raj Ghaut and the Fort of Allahabad, at the Confluence of the Great Rivers
Aquatinter: Sutherland, Thomas (b. 1785)
Medium: Aquatint, coloured
This is plate 17 from Charles Ramus Forrest's 'A Picturesque tour along the rivers Ganges and Jumna, in India'. Forrest was an East India Company official who made excursions along the rivers, producing drawings "attentively copied from nature, and in many instances coloured on the spot, ... while the magic effects of the scenes represented were still impressed on [his] mental vision".
In December1807 he set out from Calcutta with a British diplomatic legation along the Ganges. Having passed Benares [Varanasi], they moved on to Allahabad, which was "situated at the immediate confluence of the two great rivers, Ganges and Jumna, which here mingle their mighty bulk of waters. The fortress is nearly triangular in shape ... It was built by the great Acber [Akbar], and was long the residence of that renowned warrior and statesman ... The point of junction of the two rivers ... is a great resort of pilgrims, who come in vast crowds from the most remote parts of India to bathe in the sacred waters, and purify themselves from wordly sins."