W. E. A. Armstrong
Watercolour
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Not receiving at present
Victoria and Albert Museum
London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- 9 days ago
- In this state since
- Sep 25, 2026
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
About the work
Surgeon Captain W.E.A. Armstrong (fl.1895-1946) was Assistant British Resident in Kathmandu, and in June 1899 he submitted an official report on the ‘Moral and Material Progress of Nepal’ to the Secretary of the Foreign Department, Government of India (report housed in the National Archives of India, New Delhi). Nothing further is known about him, but in 1946, as Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong, he donated nine paintings to the V&A. They are signed E. Armstrong or E.W.A. (rather than W.E.A.) but the artist and the donor seem to have been the same person since the Keeper of the Indian Section noted at the time: ‘We should take some of his very able water-colours and I selected nine’. The pictures all depict places in the Kathmandu valley and are dated between 1895 and 1901.
Read on
Since some of them were exhibited at an ‘Institute’ in London during 1900 and 1901, it is possible that they were worked up specially from earlier sketches made on the spot; this seems to be confirmed by the inscription on one of them, in which [18]97-98 has been replaced by 1895, suggesting that the artist dated the picture retrospectively. The painting shown here depicts a view of the main street in Patan, Nepal, with a palace on the right, a temple on the left, and a small vegetable market in the foreground.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- IS.14-1946
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum: the museum's own open data · fetched 9 days ago
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
