"Calcutta"

In: Overland Route; Part of our Paintings gallery

Date:
c.1850s

Medium:
Watercolour on paper heightened with white bodycolour

Description:
For the mail, and many passengers, Calcutta, the 'City of Palaces', marked the end of the long journey by both sea and land. The overland route remained the quickest way to reach India but the opening of the Suez Canal, some twenty years later, would revolutionise the way Egypt was crossed. (Taken from an album of thirty-one watercolours, recording the Diorama of the Overland Mail Route from Southampton to Calcutta, and presented to Brodie McGhie Willcox, one of the founding fathers of P&O.)