SAMUEL DAVIS (1760-1819) Davis came out to India, aged 20, in 1780 in a ship in which William Hodges, the great painter, also sailed. He joined the Madras Infantry as a cadet and fought against Haidar Ali. Later he changed to a civil situation and was appointed to the Bengal Engineers. In January 1789 he was chosen by Warren Hastings to accompany Captain Samuel Turner on the historic mission to Tibet. Davis was not, however, permitted to enter the Himalayan Shangri-la, and was compelled to stay in Bhutan, awaiting Turner’s return for six months. This was a blessing in disguise. Davis, an amateur, utilized his talent in preparing 19 sketches on the landscape and sceneries of Bhutan—its monasteries, ruins, cascades, bridges and palaces. Some of these were later used for illustrating Turner’s Account of an Embassy to the court of Teshoo Lama in Tibet, published in London in 1800. Much later William Daniell engraved several others and published as Views in Bhutan.

On return to Bengal Davis was appointed to a Writership on Bengal Civil Establishment. From February 1785 to April 1792 he was Assistant to collector and Registrar to the court of Adawalat, Bhagalpur. It was here in the summer of 1790 that the famous Daniells stayed with him and their relations grew to be very close and intimate. In 1793 he was made Collector of Burdwan. Two years later he joined the office of judge and Magistrate in Benares. In 1800 he returned to the Presidency as the Magistrate of the 24-Parganas and Superintendent General of Police. At a subsequent stage he served the Board of Revenue as a Member for three years till he became Accountant-General of Bengal in 1804. Two years later he resigned from service in India. On return home he was made a Director of the East India Company in 1810, retaining the position until his death in 1819. The Daniells visited extensive areas in Eastern India while on their way back to Calcutta from the north. The rainy season of 1790 saw them installed in the house of Samuel Davis at Bhagalpur. The artists lived in close company with one another for nearly a year.

His period of stay in India lasted from 1780 to 1806. Though pre-occupied with inconvenient duties of exacting offices he held, Davis utilized his precious leisure in astronomical research and painting excursions. There is no means of ascertaining the total number of his sketches on India. His Bhootan Views are the first pictorial studies of the obscure Himalayan State—its landscape and buildings. In the Victoria Memorial collection there are no fewer than 21 sketches on Bhootan, several of which, however, remain to be identified.

Bhutan