Festival at Fatehpur Sikri

Weeks's Festival at Fatehpur Sikri depicts the deserted Mughal capital built by Akbar the Great in the 1570s and abandoned within a generation, which by Weeks's time was a ghost city of red sandstone palaces visited by occasional pilgrim festivals. Fatehpur Sikri's combination of Mughal imperial grandeur and melancholy abandonment made it one of the most visited sites by European artists and writers in India. Weeks used the vast courtyard of the Jama Masjid as a stage for the festival crowd, setting human scale against Akbar's monumental architecture.

The vast sandstone courtyard creates a warm, enveloping ground of deep red against which the crowd's white garments and coloured saris read as vivid accents. Weeks handles the architectural recession through strong convergence lines in the court's paving and the arcaded walls, demonstrating his command of perspective in large outdoor spaces.