Annie's Drawing Room, Madura, Company School, India, circa 1840, watercolour and pencil on paper watermarked TH Saunders 1834, possibly an interior in the former Tamukkan Palace, Madurai and showing how furnishings were adapted to British taste, including for the Chinese occupant, Martyn Gregory Gallery label to reverse including title and photocopy of inscription verso, mounted, glazed and framed, painting 30.5 x 28.5cm. 

Exhibited: From China to the West, cat 90, 2012-2013, no. 103

Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, was the capital of British India from 1772 to 1911. Although it was also geographically the easiest accessible metropolitan area from China by land, there were few Chinese people in Calcutta until the late British Raj era; Chinese immigrants choose to go to Burma instead. One of the first persons of Chinese origin to arrive in Calcutta was Yang Tai Chow who arrived in 1778. He was an either northern Chinese or a Hakka from Guangdong or Fujian province of China. Governor-General of India Warren Hastings granted land to Achew to set up a sugar cane plantation and sugar factory in a place, currently called Achipur, located near the town of Budge-Budge on the banks of the River Hoogly. According to records of the East India Company from the year 1778, "Achew was granted 650 bighas of land about 6 miles south of Budge – Budge for an annual rent of Rs 45". Many of the earliest Chinese immigrants worked on the Khidderpore docks. A police report in 1788 mentions a sizable Chinese population settled in the vicinity of Bow Bazaar Street. The sugar mill that Atchew had set up in the patch of land near the town of Budge Budge drew other Chinese migrants and soon a small community had formed around it. By 1783, we know Atchew was dead – a letter shows an East India Company attorney trying to extract money from the executor of his estate. An advertisement in the Calcutta Gazette in 1804 announces that the sugar mill was up for sale. A temple and the grave of Tong Achi still remain and are visited by many Chinese who come from the city during the Chinese New Year.