Dancing girls, with musicians, entertaining an Indian gentleman of Patna city who is seated under a red canopy; a courtyard in the background - 1860
The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings. The artist Shiva Lal, who painted this one around 1860...
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The Harihar Kshetra festival at Sonepur, Bihar. A vast crowd attending the Sonepur fair; in the foreground there are tents erected for notables - 1826
By Sevak Ram
The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings. This one shows the Harihar Kshetra fes...
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Sikh marriage procession: the bridegroom riding on horseback, a parasol-bearer beside him. The procession faces left and contains camels with riders and musicians - ca. 1860
This Company painting depicts a Sikh marriage procession, with the bridegroom on horseback attended by a parasol-bearer ...
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Eight Men in Indian and Burmese Costume, 19th century
India (Delhi)
Opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper
The style of this Company painting is very similar to that of a series of pictures commissioned by two Scottish brothers named Fraser who were resident in India during the first half...
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A watercolour, with coloured borders, of a parrot tethered to a perch, ca.1840
By Hulas Lal
The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings. This one was painted around 1870 and is probably the work of Bahadur Lal II, who worked in Patna.
By the late 18th century, the British emerged as the dominant power in India, encouraging middle-class young Englishmen to join the East India Company as civilians and soldiers. The newcomers were fascinated by the variegated landscape of the country, its magnificent...
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In an era before cameras and photography, administrators, officials and visitors to the East India Company area of operations would buy these paintings to bring back and show their friends and relatives. They tended to be of fairly mundane subjects - but for a pre-mult...
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"There one sees a structure of an elevation prodigious in height; it is supported by gigantic pillars and covered with paintings of all the birds created by God. In the interior are two immense idols carved in the rock and rising from the foot of the m...
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Buildings and ruined masonry on the river bank, Colgong (Bihar) - 1814
Water-colour painting of buildings on the river bank at Colgong (Bihar) by Robert Smith (1787-1873) between 1814 and 1815. Inscribed on the original mount in pencil is: 'Colgong.' The paper is watermarked 'VEIC 1807'.
Between 399 and 414 CE, the Chinese monk Faxian (Fa-Hsien, Fa Hien) undertook a trip via Central Asia to India seeking better copies of Buddhist books than were currently available in China. Although cryptic to the extent that we cannot always be sure where he was,...
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Gouache painting with gold of village life in Kashmir, by Mir Kalan Khan, working in the Lucknow/Faizabad style, c.1760. Inscribed on the border in Persian: 'majlis-i kashmir, 'amal-i mir kalan' (A Kashmiri assembly, the work of Mir Kalan).
Hindus bathing in a tank in the early morning during a festival in Kashmir - 1855
William Carpenter (ca.1818-1899) travelled through India from 1850-1857 painting portraits and pictures of Indian life and scenery. He travelled to Calcutta via Bombay and Sri Lanka and then up to Delhi and the P...
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The Deposition from the Cross; opaque watercolour and gold on paper; Mughal; probably Lahore, ca.1598.
Two ladders rest againt the cross allowing two figures to support the dead body of Christ from below as they release him from his crucifixion, and two more to hand him down from the top. Angels...
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Watercolour 'Near Midnapore, Bengal' - 19th century
By George Chinnery
Chinnery was born in London, where he studied at the Royal Academy Schools. His father was an exponent of the Gurney system of shorthand; his elder brother William Chinnery owned what is now Gilwell Park in Essex, before he w...
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Catholic Church at Bandel, near Hooghly in West Bengal - 1820
Watercolour by Sir Charles D'Oyly of the Catholic church at Bandel, near Hooghly in West Bengal, inscribed: 'N1' 'Bandel Church and Refectory. Augt 1820.', from an album in red leather covers with a gold stamped border, containing 28 ...
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A. R. Pollock's camp under the Kaimur hills (U.P.) - December 1868
Water-colour painting of a camp under the Kaimur hills (Uttar Pradesh) by Stanley Leighton (1837-1901), December 1868. Inscribed on the mount in pencil is: 'Mr A.R. Pollock's camp, under the Kaimoor hills, Mirzapore.' A. R. Pol...
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The painting depicts the twelve apostles in profile, six stand in the foreground and six in the background; Christ, is the only figure depicted in full frontal view. All the figures, have very large eyes, a characteristic feature of Jamini Roy's work. The ...
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The Nativity of Christ, watercolour on paper, by a Mughal artist after a European original, ca. 1605-1610.
This painting is done in a style derived from Iranian painting and known as ‘nim qalam’, where tones of brown and ochre predominate but particular areas are given stronger colours. The co...
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The Mughal emperors keenly collected European paintings and engravings, many of which were brought to the court in the late 16th and early 17th century by successive Jesuit missions who travelled to Delhi, Agra and Lahore from Portuguese Goa. The artists employed by the emperor Akbar (r. 1556-160...
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This website is an archive of book paintings -commonly known as Persian Miniatures - that were created to illustrate scenes from the Persian national epic, the Shahnama (the Book of Kings). The Shahnama is a poem of some 50,000 couplets that was composed by A...
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A steamer moored to the bank of a river, probably at Rohri on the Indus; in the background an island fort - 1860
Watercolour of a steamer, possibly at Rohri in Sind, Pakistan, by William Simpson, dated c.1860. This image shows a steamer moored to the bank of a river, possibly the Indus, with an ...
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