Add Or 2514-2525

Add.Or.2514-2525

12 drawings made for Lieutenant-Colonel W.R. Gilbert depicting his houses, gardens, servants and local scenery at Hazaribagh (Bihar), Sambalpur (Orissa) and Surguja (Central Provinces).

By a Calcutta artist, perhaps from Murshidabad, c.1825.

Water-colour; 17.25 by 26 ins (unless otherwise stated).

Purchased, together with WD2058-2063 (2060 being a sketch-book by Sir Charles D’Oyly), 19 March 1963.

Note: Lieutenant-Colonel Gilbert (1785-1853), later Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert, first baronet, G.C.B., went to India with the 15th Native Infantry in 1801. At the time when these paintings were made, he was Commandant of the Ramgarh Battalion based on Hazaribagh (Bihar) from 1822 to 1828. During the period 1825 to 1827, he was also Political Agent for the South West Frontier with head-quarters at Sambalpur (Orissa).

Gilbert belonged to a circle which was intensely interested in painting. From June 1812 to May 1813 he was A.D.C. to Sir George and Lady Nugent who collected paintings of India by both British amateurs and Indian artists (see Add.Or.2593, Add.Or.2600). In 1814 he married Isabella Ross, the sister of Eliza, wife of Sir Charles D’Oyly, the skilled amateur artist and later patron of Indian artists in Patna. D’Oyly was in Calcutta from 1812 to 1821 as Collector of Customs and Town Duties, when Gilbert was there as Commandant of the Calcutta Native Militia, and later (1821-22) Superintendant of the Mysore Princes. These contacts may have stimulated Gilbert’s own interests in painting and led him and his wife to acquire pictures. Besides owning a number of standard sets by Calcutta artists (still in private hands), the couple made a collection documenting their life in Hazaribagh and Sambalpur, of which the present pictures are examples. The artist who made them may have been privately retained by Gilbert, but it is more likely that he was a survey draftsman in Company employment who accompanied Gilbert officially on his various assignments and from time to time executed private commissions. The artist, perhaps of Murshidabad ancestry, was probably recruited in Calcutta. For other pictures from the same series, see Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘I.S. 10-1963’ to’ I.S. 16-1963.’