Famed for his pictures of the Crimean war theatre, Simpson was commissioned to illustrate a work on India that was to rival David Roberts's "Holy Land". He arrived in Calcutta in 1859 and joined the party of the Governor-General, Lord Canning, on a tour of the area where the mutiny had taken place. Over three years he visited much of the subcontinent, including the Himalayas, Kashmir, Ceylon, Tibet and its Buddhist temples, and upon his return submitted 250 watercolours to his publishers. However, in the wake of the Panic of 1866, the wealthy English patrons and subscribers on whom Day & Son had banked shrunk away from so costly an undertaking, and the publisher - already under pressure since cheaper wood engravings had turned chromolithographs into a luxury - issued a series of merely 50 chromolithographed plates. Simpson's original watercolours, much to the artist's chagrin, were ultimately sold off as bankrupt stock. The work remains a magnificent achievement, presenting a detailed and wide-ranging representation of India immediately after the Sepoy Rebellion.
The Gangotri is the source of the River Ganges, sacred to Hindus who make pilgrimages to the icy waters that spring from the mouth of the Gangotri glacier in the high passes of the Himalayas. The actual source is a few kilometres from the town of Gangotri. According to popular Hindu legend, Goddess Ganga descended here when Lord Shiva released the mighty river from the locks of his hair.
