Add Or 4305

f.4 A grey horse, rather fly-blown, with cropped tail, mane and (apparently!) ears, facing right, an Indian jockey up in maroon and dark blue colours, against a softly painted landscape and unpainted sky.

By a Calcutta artist, c.1820.

Inscribed in pencil on reverse: ‘Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert’s Racehorse, taken by him from an Ekka, won many races.’.

Water-colour and body-colour; 232 by 338 mm.

Published: J.P. Losty ‘The Calcutta of Charles D’Oyly’, ‘Changing Visions, Lasting Images: Calcutta through 300 Years’, ed. P. Pal, Bombay, 1990, pp. 47-58, fig.13.

Note: This and the next drawing were given in 1852-53 by Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert to James William Macnabb according to the latter’s son Archibald Corrie Macnabb: ‘When a Member of Council in Calcutta he [Sir W.R. Gilbert] gave my father two paintings of his race horses, which I still have’ (Mss Eur F206, p.278). For Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert, first baronet, G.C.B., an enthusiastic patron both of the turf and painting, see Add.Or.2514-25, 3949-51, and 4747; also DNB. He was Military Member of the Supreme Council in Calcutta, 1852-53. Gilbert’s wife, Isabella Rose née Ross, was cousin to James William Macnabb’s mother. The young James William joined the Bengal Civil Service in 1852, and would have seen his elder cousin only briefly in Calcutta before his own move to Multan in 1853 and Gilbert’s death that same year.