View of the Taj Mahal along the Yamuna River

It seems there were designated vantage points at well-known monuments in India that offered the best views for artists. Travel guide books on India and personal travel accounts that circulated in nineteenth-century England listed out the main sights in major cities, describing in detail the key architectural monuments and their histories. The Taj Mahal featured prominently in such sources.

Many artists both sketched on-site and also purchased photographs from commercial studios of famous locales for use as memory aids when they worked on-site drawings into detailed paintings or lithographs back in their own studios.