Vale of Kashmir

The print file prints up to 11.3 x 6.2 in at 300 ppi — enough for a full 6 x 9 in front cover. Wider than a 6 x 9 cover: crop about 64% of the width, or use it as a wraparound across back and spine.

Cincinnati-based Duncanson was the first African American artist to achieve recognition both nationally and abroad. This panoramic painting, one of his grandest, was inspired by an episode in Thomas Moore’s then-popular epic poem, Lalla-Rookh (1817), which describes a Persian princess’s journey to the Indian subcontinent to be married. In Duncanson’s conception, members of a courtly entourage depart a quasi-Islamic palace, arriving by boat onto a scrim of land where they ascend a monumental staircase to a plaza with a fountain spraying an impressive plume of water.