Four depictions of castes, occupations and trades of India : a taylor, a principal officer, a...

Four depictions of castes, occupations and trades of India : a taylor, a principal officer, a black officer in the Army, a Sheroff or money changer, 
Tanjore School, South India, 1800-1820, 

Opaque and  pigments heightened with gold, laid on card, each depicted with their wives within black rules, occupations handwritten in black ink and numbered to the lower right corners, the reverses with a re-iteration of the occupation in black ink, some with slight variations, and various numerals in pencil, the "black officer in the Army" possibly a Sikh, each mounted

each 39.5 x 28cm. approx., 53.5 x 42cm mounted

Note :
As early as the first half of the 18th century, as oral tradition goes, artists known as 'moochys', from as far away as Hyderabad, moved to southern India and took up residence there, establishing studios and ultimately painting for both French and British partons.

At this time the East India Company was employing Indian artists to assist with the survey of the area. As they came into contact with the British, the Indian artists began to absorb European methods of composition and perspective, not only appreciating British techniques but also beginning to understand British taste and desire to collect images of Indian life.

Sets of watercolours were produced depicting men and women of castes in costumes relating to their trade or occupation and carrying the relevant tools or attributes. In the earliest examples the background was kept to broad stripes of green or blue and yellow, with a thin bank of cloud across the upper edge. An attempt to follow the European tradition of three dimensionality and volume resulted in dark hoops beneath each figure to represent shadow. Towards the turn of the century a zig zag of white was introduced across the sky to delineate a great cumulus cloud and the landscape of diminutive, trees bushes and thatched huts across the horizon became more precise.

Mildred Archer writes that the realistic and delicate style that was developed in Tanjore was unrivalled by any other Company school. A similar album of 36 watercolours, dated 1805, is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, acquisition number AL9254(1-36).

Our four paintings also do share close similarities with paintings owned by Niels Studsgaard Fuglsang (1759-1832).  Educated as a theologian at the University of Copenhagen in 1792 he was minister in charge of the Danish Zion Church congregation in Tanjore. Upon his death, once back in Denmark, his wife donated his collection of paintings and other artefacts to the Royal Art Museum’s Ethnographical Department of Copenhagen. The depiction of the Sikh soldier (National museum of Denmark, D.1695), the garb of our "Taylor" identical to that of the musician seen on Fuglsang's painting described  as "En mohrsk danserinde Musikant med instrument Sasangi" (D.1686), and the treatment of the sky in the depiction of the itinerant Muslim pearl seller and his wife of the same collection (D.1677) all suggest our four paintings originate from the same centre of production and perhaps, from a painter close to or from the same atelier as the artist who painted some of Fulsgang's works. They all share what Laura Berivan Nilsson notes "all of the paintings have the same background with greyish clouds, a yellow-green earth, and a horizon with palm trees" (Tranquebar Skriftserie, Picturing the Unknown, Nr.11, the Tranquebar Initiative of the National Museum of Denmark, 2015).

The present collection is a particularly fine and extensive set, extravagantly heightened with gold paint.