Gateway to the tomb of Husain Shah at Gaur, West Bengal. Etching by James Moffat after Henry Creighton, ca. 1808.

Early views in India, Mildred Archer, London 1980, note to no. 91. Gaur was the capital of Bengal under its ancient Hindu kings and after 1200 under Muslim rulers. Husain Shah ruled from 1493-1519. In 1575, an outbreak of plague caused the city to be abandoned. but an outbreak of plague in 1575 caused it to be abandoned

There is another view of a gate at Gaur by Thomas and William Daniell, published in their series Oriental scenery, I, with the lettering "Ruins at the Antient City of Gour formerly on the Banks of the River Ganges". Archer suggests that the gate depicted by the Daniells is probably the Dakhil gate to the north of the citadel. It is difficult to establish if it is the same gate as depicted by Creighton due to the stylistic differences between the two images

1 print : line etching with aquatint, printed in sepia ; platemark 35.7 x 51 cm

Gate of Sultan Shah Hussein's tomb at Gour ; HC. delin ; I. Moffat. sculp.

Travel in aquatint in lithography 1770-1860 from the library of J.R. Abbey, San Francisco 1991, vol. 2, 438. The series in Abbey, The ruins of Gour, with plates by Thomas Medland after Henry Creighton, may be derived from the same series of images by Creighton as the current image by James Moffat. See plate 8 with the lettering "The Tomb of Shah Husayn"

Wellcome Collection 26916i

British drawings in the India Office Library, Mildred Archer, London 1969, vol. 1, p. 49. In her introduction, Archer includes Moffat among a group of professional artists who had "come to India, succumbed to its spell and, after abandoning their homelands, lived and died there"

British drawings in the India Office Library, Mildred Archer, London 1969, vol. 2, p. 621. In 1808 James Moffat produced a series of prints after Henry Creighton's drawings of Gaur