In the early nineteenth century, British consumers increasingly demanded representations of foreign areas newly opened up by British imperial expansion. The Scottish travel writer, and artist James Baillie Fraser (1783 – 1856) tapped into this demand by illustrating and writing about the. Fraser was a man possessed of many talents and great reserves of energy, a bold and adventurous traveller to unexplored areas of India, Persia and Mesapotamia, a prolific writer of travel books and quasi-historic romances. He was also an accomplished artist.
Here, the magical (picturesque style) watercolours from his Views in the Himalaya Mountains of 1820, give us some of the very earliest views of India’s Himalayan region.
