The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-life size figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle (see illustrations above).
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According to one writer, unlike the paintings created by her predecessors Griffiths and Gill, whose copies were influenced by British Victorian styles of painting, those of the Herringham expedition preferred an 'Indian Renascence' aesthetic of the type pioneered by Abanindranath Tagore.
The history of cave paintings in India range from drawings and paintings from prehistoric times, beginning around 30,000 BCE in the caves of Central India, typified by those at the Bhimbetka rock shelters to elaborate frescoes at sites such as the rock-cut artificial caves at Ajanta and Ellora, extending as late as the 8th - 10th century CE.
The first documentation of the cotton gin by contemporary scholars is found in the fifth century AD, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves in western India.
Some of the looks and clothing drawn carries certain similarities with murals found in Ajanta Caves (India) or Dunhuang (China.) Also observed are Tang and Inidian flavors of the Bosatsu and Kannon drawn on the sides of the Amida.
The artist Robert Gill was married on 25 May 1825, shortly before returning to India, where he spent the rest of his life, much of it copying the paintings of the Ajanta Caves.
In 1906, Herringham accompanied her to India where on this and another visit, she made copies of the Buddhist cave paintings at Ajanta near Hyderbad, which were deteriorating badly.
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He founded the Osmania University and was largely responsible for the restoration of the Ajanta caves.