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Description: | Watercolour in pen and ink of a view of the creek at Yenangyaung from 'A Series of Views in Burmah taken during Major Phayre’s Mission to the Court of Ava in 1855' by Colesworthy Grant. This album is made up of 106 landscapes and portraits of Burmese and Europeans documenting the British embassy to the Burmese King, Mindon Min (reigned 1853-1878).
The mission took place after the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852 and the annexation by the British of the Burmese province of Pegu. It was despatched by the Governor-General of India Lord Dalhousie on the instructions of the East India Company, to attempt to persuade King Mindon to sign a treaty formally acknowledging the extension of British rule over the province. The mission started out from Rangoon and travelled up the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) River to the royal capital at Amarapura. Grant was the official artist on the mission. In recognition of his skill, he was presented with a gold cup and ruby ring by the Burmese King.
Grant wrote that: 'Upon the first visit of the Embassy, this creek, whence the town takes its name, and from the bed of which this view is obtained, was partially flowing with water, and served as a harbour for boats. On the return of the Mission party, the whole channel, with the exception of a small patch of water here and there, was a thick bed of dry sand, along which the carts were seen passing to and fro, engaged in conveying the oil from the Wells. The pagoda and wooden tzoum...crowning the higher portion of the bank.. [the] triple roofed wooden edifices on the lower portion of the bank, are the Kioungs or monasteries of the Priests, whose residences are always contiguous to the pagodas. This may therefore be taken as the representation of a perfect group of Boodhist ecclesiastical buildings.' | License: | http://www.bl.uk/services/copy/permission.html | Rights holder: | British Library | Source: | Collect Britain | Creator: | Grant, Colesworthy (1813-1880) | Identifier: | http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personal... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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