Add Or 2674-2743

Add.Or.2674-2743

70 drawings mounted in a volume: 12 (2674-2685) depicting Mughal rulers, their relations and contemporaries; 21 (2686-2706) depicting rulers of Bengal, Bihar and Oudh in the 18th century; 27 (2707-2733) depicting occupations an boats; 9 (2734-2742) depicting 2 buildings, 5 musical instruments and 2 figures; one (2743) a landscape.

Add.Or.2674-2733 by a Murshidabad artist; Add.Or.2734-2742 by a Murshidabad artist working to the directions of a European; Add.Or.2743 by Robert Nichols Brouncker; c.1785-90.

Mostly inscribed with titles.

Add.Or.2674-2733: water-colour; 10.75 by 7.5 ins. approx.; Add.Or.2734-2743: pen-and-ink and wash; varying sizes.

Note: 2674-2733 appear to be by the same artist and are distinguished by pale colouring - pale blue sky, light sandy yellow ground, white terraces - and by touches of bright local colour.

The inscriptions on the drawings were probably written not later than 1795, since Chet Singh (2705) is referred to as ‘the late Nabob of Benares’. Chet Singh was deposed in 1781 and his successor, Mahip Narain Singh died in 1795.

Drawings (2686-2706) include portraits of rulers and officials in Bengal and Oudh who figured prominently in the political upheavals of the eighteenth century when the British were establishng themselves in Bengal. They are the characters who appear in accounts such as Luke Scrafton, ‘Reflections on the government of Indostan with a short sketch of the history of Bengal from mdccxxxviii to mdcclvi;’ ‘an account of the English affairs to mdcclviii’ (London, 1763); Salim Allah (F. Gladwin trans.) ‘A Narrative of the transactions in Bengal, during the Soobahdaries of Azeem us Shan, Jaffer Khan, Shuja Khan, Sirafraz Khan and Alyvirdy Khan’ (Calcutta, 1788); Ghulam Husain Khan (Hajji Mustafa trans.) ‘Seir Mutaqherin,’ 4 vols. (Calcutta and Madras, 1789). See also K. Datta, ‘Alivardi and his times’ (Calcutta, 1939) and J. Sarkar, ‘The History of Bengal, vol. 2, Muslim period’ (Dacca, 1948).

Three paintings of Lucknow personalities, those of Shuja‘ al-Daula (2687), Haidar Beg Khan (2688) and Husain Riza Khan (2690), illustrate how Indian artists in the late eighteenth century were copying oil paintings by European artists. The prototypes of these pictures first made in Faizabad and Lucknow were based on portraits by Tilly Kettle. Once copies had been made, artists in Lucknow continued to reproduce them and their versions were re-copied by Murshidabad artists.

The dwarf depicted in 2741, may be the famous dwarf of Kasimbazar who is portrayed in a set of Murshidabad paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum (11(4)-1887 I.S.).

It is possible that this volume of paintings belonged to Robert Nichols Brouncker who drew the last picture. His name cannot be traced in the East India Company records and he may possibly have been a Dutchman from one of the Bengal Dutch factories near Murshidabad. The last nine drawings show marked European influence and were probably made for Brouncker by an Indian draftsman working under his supervision. The bungalow shown in the last picture may be Brouncker’s own house.