Company painting – works made by Indian artists for patrons of the East India Company – has been the subject of lively scholarship over the last few years. Discussion of these works, this exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art contends, has been insufficiently attentive to how Indian, Chinese and British painters in the 18th and 19th centuries shared ideas and techniques, and even collaborated on artworks (8 January–21 June). One of the pieces on display, an 11-metre-long scroll that depicts the city of Lucknow in watercolour, has recently undergone analysis that shows that it was the work of several artists. Also on show are several of Bhawani Das’s immaculate paintings of animals, as well as street scenes, many of them by anonymous artists or those who are no longer known. There is a strong focus, too, on Tilly Kettle, who moved to India in 1768, becoming the first British painter to work in British-ruled India. There for two years, he painted portraits of nawabs and British colonialists, as well as scenes depicting specific cultural practices.
Find out more from the Yale Center for British Art’s website
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