Mausoleum of Nawaub Asoph Khan, Rajemahel

Artist and engraver: Daniell, Thomas (1749-1840)
Medium: Aquatint, coloured
Date: 1803

Plate 24 from the third set of Thomas and William Daniells' 'Oriental Scenery.' Of all the British artists who went to India in the 18th and 19th Centuries, it is Thomas and William Daniell who are the best known. Their work gives us a visual record of late 18th Century India that no other source can match. Some of their most important work shows buildings which have now vanished forever, even before the age of photography, such as this tomb, which they believed to be that of Nawab Asaf Khan, Jahangir's brother-in-law. Asaf Khan (d. 1641) in fact is buried in Lahore, and it is not now known who lies buried in this now vanished tomb in Rajmahal, the former capital of the Subahdar or Mughal Viceroy of Bengal and Bihar.