A hilly Indian landscape with figures passing by a cave

Hodges arrived in India in January 1780 and spent three years travelling in the north east of the country under the protection of the Governor-General of Bengal, Warren Hastings. 'Having spent a year in Madras, confined by ill health and the ongoing war with Hyder Ali, Hodges moved to Calcutta, arriving there in spring 1781. He had earlier been recommended to Warren Hastings as an artist desirous of recording 'the most curious appearances of nature and art in Asia' [Macpherson to Hastings, 31 Dec. 1778]. This marked the start of an extraordinarily productive two-and-a-half years in which he toured Bengal and Bihar, and produced paintings for the leading figures in British India: Sir Elijah Impey, Claude Martin and, above all, Warren Hastings himself. Besides Hastings, however, the most important patron of Hodges's painting in India was Augustus Cleveland, the District Collector for Bihar, with whom he stayed for several months early in 1782, making paintings and drawings of the landscape around Bhagalpur and the Rajmahal hills.' (G. Quilley in G. Quilley and J. Bonehill (eds), William Hodges (1744-1797) The Art of Exploration, New Haven and London, 2004, p.138). He first met Cleveland, the young magistrate and Collector stationed at Bhagalpur in the spring of 1781 at Rajmahal on the first of his three tours out of Calcutta. In the spring of 1782, on his second excursion, he stayed at Bhagalpur with Cleveland and travelled with him in the neighbouring hills. The present picture, a quickly painted bravura canvas by Hodges, is probably from these excursions with Cleveland, and perhaps an unlocated work (such as one of the two Sickergully views) from Cleveland's collection sold in Calcutta on 4 February, the works listed in the advertisement published in the Calcutta Gazette on 9 January 1794.