Brick Temples of Bengal: From the Archives of David McCutchion

George Michell bases this work, the first detailed study of the brick temples of Bengal, on the vast archives of photographs and other material collected by David McCutchion during fifteen years of field work in remote areas of the Bengali countryside. Built between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries and embellished with terracotta sculpture, the temples studied here form one of the most distinctive groups of sacred monuments in India.

The editor's introduction treats the historical background of the temples, and a preface by Satyajit Ray contains reminiscences of McCutchion. The book continues with McCutchion's discussion of the temples' architecture and Dr. Michell's chapters on the sculpture. Also included are an index of the temples, maps commissioned for the book, and short contributions by Tarapada Santra and Zulekha Haque.

Until his untimely death in 1972, McCutchion, who worked as a university lecturer in Calcutta, spent his weekends and holidays documenting these buildings, most of which had never before been systematically recorded. This volume pays tribute to his accomplishment and makes use of the classification scheme he devised for the temple structure and sculpture.