William Daniell - Financial Success

Financial Success

The Daniells’ great work on India, Oriental Scenery, was published in six parts over the period 1795–1808). It comprised a total of 144 coloured aquatints and six uncoloured title-pages. The cost of a complete set was £210. The publication was a success, both artistically and financially. Thirty sets were sold to the East India Company, and a further order for eighteen copies was received. Thomas Sutton quotes a glowing tribute to the artistic work of the Daniells in an extract from The Calcutta Monthly Magazine. “The execution of these drawings is indeed masterly; there is every reason to confide in the fidelity of the representations; and the effect produced by this rich and splendid display of oriental scenery is truly striking. In looking at it, one may almost feel the warmth of an Indian sky, the water seems to be in actual motion and the animals, trees and plants are studies for the naturalist.” Further different versions of Indian scenes were published, and details can be found in Sutton’s book, together with a detailed inventory of all the artistic output of Thomas, Samuel and William Daniell.

Oriental Scenery took its place among such revered works as J. Stuart and N. Revett’s Antiquities of Athens (1762), Baron Denon’s Voyage dans la basse et la haute Egypte (1802) and Robert Wood’s Ruins of Palmyra (1753) and Ruins of Balbek (1757). It provided an entirely new vision of the Indian subcontinent that was to influence both decorative arts and British architectural design. Above all, it formed a popular vision in Britain of a romantic and picturesque India that to some extent persists.

Daniell's years after 1804 included engraving 72 etchings after George Dance's highly finished pencil profile portraits of Regency London's artistic establishment. A Collection of Portraits were published over ten years from 1804. Many are now held by the National Portrait Gallery. For Rees's Cyclopaedia he contributed drawings, but these have not been identified.