PURANA QILA (OLD FORT) DELHI, INDIA
signed indistinctly and dated Dorothea St... 1926 lower left
pencil and watercolour heightened with white on paper
35.5 x 24.5cm; 14 x 19 3/4in
56.5 x 42cm; 22 1/4 x 16 1/2 in (framed)

Property from a Private Collection, Kew

Provenance
Edgar Seaton Hyde, Cheshire (probably acquired from the artist in the late 1920s)
Thence by descent

The Talaqi Darwaza (The Forbidden Gate) depicted is located at the north side of the Old Fort in Delhi. Comprising two openings, the upper, more lavishly decorated one, served as the entrance, and the lower, sits where the moat would have been. The moat was at some point linked to the Yamuna river in Uttar Pradesh, India. In the 16th century, the Mughal Emperor, Humayun, built the Purana Qila in red sandstone, as part of his new city. Subsequently, Sher Shah Suri took over, and added to the existing structure during his reign. The grounds on which the fort stands, appealed to the rulers, for the history buried beneath, and excavations in the last century have revealed the remains of civilisations going back to 300BC.

offered for sale without reserve