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James Wales archive

 Collection
Call Number: MSS 26

Scope and Contents

The collection comprises diaries, notebooks, and other manuscript documents concerning the travels of James Wales in India, with a particular focus on antiquities of Poona and the nearby cave temples of Ellora.

Dates

  • 1786-1797

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open without restriction.

Conditions Governing Use

The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into four series: I. Diaries; II. Cave descriptions and other notes; III. Drawings; IV. Material related to publications by James Wales.

Related Materials

The present collection of archival material accompanies a collection of two prints and 196 drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings, Yale Center for British Art (B1977.14.22244-22441). The drawings include works by Robert Mabon, Gungaram Chintaman Tambat, William Birch, William Williamson, Boge Raj, and other unknown European and Indian artists, of various subjects in and around the city of Poona, India, and the nearby cave temples of Ellora, dating mostly from 1792 to 1796.

Extent

1 Linear Feet (1 box, 2 volumes)

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/ycba.mss.0026

Additional Description

Overview

The collection comprises diaries, notebooks, and other manuscript documents concerning the travels of James Wales in India, with a particular focus on antiquities of Poona and the nearby cave temples of Ellora.

Biographical / Historical

"The self-taught British artist James Wales arrived in Bombay in 1791, and immediately began to work on a series of 'Picturesque Prospects' of the city, for which he hired Robert Mabon, an East India Company soldier and draftsman, as an assistant. He published this project in 1795 as Views of the Island of Bombay and its vicinity. In June of 1792, Charles Warre Malet called Wales to Poona to paint portraits and history paintings, and Mabon accompanied him. Wales, like Forbes and Malet, had an interest in cave temples, and in his journal he describes a proposed publication called 'Indian Antiquities,' which would 'contain every excavated work worthy of attention on the West side of India.' He hired several assistants, both British and Indian, including Mabon and Gangaram Chintaman Tambat, for this project. Unfortunately Wales died from the 'Putrid air' inhaled while sketching the cave temples of Salsette before he could finish 'Indian Antiquities,' and Malet commissioned the artist Thomas Daniell to complete it for publication [as Hindoo excavations in the mountain of Ellora]."--Holly Shaffer, Adapting the Eye (2011).

Bibliography

Kulkarni, Uday S. James Wales, artist and antiquarian in the time of Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao: an illustrated chronicle based on original documents. Pune, India: Mula Mutha Publishers, 2019
Shaffer, Holly. Adapting the eye, an archive of the British in India: October 11-December 31, 2011, Yale Center for British Art. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2011.
Shaffer, Holly. Grafted arts: art making and taking in the struggle for Western India, 1760-1910. London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2022.

Subjects

Related Names

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Guide to the James Wales archive
Status
Completed
Author
edited by Francis Lapka
Date
2022
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Yale Center for British Art, Rare Books and Manuscripts Repository

https://britishart.yale.edu/about-us/departments/rare-books-and-manuscripts
Contact:
Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts
1080 Chapel Street
P. O. Box 208280
New Haven CT 06520-8280 US
203-432-2814

Location

1080 Chapel Street
New Haven , CT 06510

Opening Hours

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