William Carpenter was the eldest son of the distinguished portrait painter Margaret Sarah Carpenter and of William Hookham Carpenter, who became Keeper of the Prints and Drawings Department at the British Museum. In early 1850 he set off in the footsteps of his younger brother Percy, also an artist, and landed in Bombay. He spent much of his time painting portraits of local rulers and the surrounding countryside, often wearing Indian dress himself. He travelled widely, from Sri Lanka in the south to Kashmir in the north, and he also spent some time in the Punjab and Afghanistan before moving south to Rajasthan. He appears to have returned to England in 1856. Ten years later he was living in Boston, USA, but he later returned to London, where he died in 1899. This painting depicts a ghat on the Narbada river.
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A ghat is a broad flight of steps on an Indian riverbank that gives access to the water, especially for bathing. The Narmada or Narbada river (spelled Nerbudda by Carpenter) is traditionally regarded as the boundary between Hindustan proper and the Deccan and is the second holiest river (after the Ganges) in India. There are special places of pilgrimage along its whole course.
