A Chorten (Primary Title)
Third Indian and Ladaki Set (Set Title)
Ernest Stephen Lumsden, English, 1883–1948 (Artist)
Ernest Stephen Lumsden, English, 1883–1948 (Printer)
When Lumsden and his new bride ventured into Ladakh with one servant and a tent in 1916, they were going where only a handful of Europeans had journeyed before. In addition to its striking topography, Ladakh’s Tibetan Buddhist monuments have always fascinated outsiders. Here Lumsden depicts a group of the region’s innumerable chortens, a regional variant of the pan-Buddhist stupa that commemorates the Buddha and demarcates sacred space. Two figures ride away on mules. The artist utilizes drypoint, scratching directly into the metal plate with his needle. The result is a dark, almost velvety line. In turning to drypoint in his later years, Lumsden revisited a technique he had practiced almost exclusively in his earliest prints of 1905–6.
ed. 47
Signed in ink "Lumsden imp" at bottom center along plate line; also "14 50" in ink along plate line.
Following information inscribed in graphite by Harold Wright in lower right margin, recto: P 12300 and S21405
Following information inscribed in graphite by unknown hand(s) on verso: 20784
Gift of Frank Raysor
Light and Line: E. S. Lumsden's Visions of India, VMFA South Asian Galleries, April 11, 2016 - April 4, 2017
Copley, John. “The Later Etchings of E. S. Lumsden”, The Print Collector’s Quarterly, July 1936. Includes a chronological list, 1905-1935, compiled by E. S. Lumsden.
©artist or artist’s estate
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