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Lot Essay
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).
The present collection is a particularly fine and extensive set, extravagantly heightened with gold paint. The paintings depict a variety of occupations and intermingle Muslim and Hindu dignitaries with lower caste gladiators and snake charmers.
The albums were formerly in one of the most celebrated libraries. Sir Thomas Phillipps Bt. (1792-1872) 'the greatest collector of manuscript material the world has ever known' (S. de Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts (1530-1930), Cambridge, 1930, p. 119), desired to preserve valuable and important manuscript material from destruction and this led him to amass a collection as remarkable for its scale as for the importance of the pieces; each volume of manuscripts was allocated an accession number (in a series beginning at 1), and by the time of his death the series exceeded 36,000. On his death the collection was bequeathed to his third daughter Mrs J.E.A. Fenwick, and arrangements were made to dispose of the collection; the dispersal commenced with a sale of printed books at Sotheby's on 3 August 1886, and was only completed some 95 years later in 1981.
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).
The present collection is a particularly fine and extensive set, extravagantly heightened with gold paint. The paintings depict a variety of occupations and intermingle Muslim and Hindu dignitaries with lower caste gladiators and snake charmers.
The albums were formerly in one of the most celebrated libraries. Sir Thomas Phillipps Bt. (1792-1872) 'the greatest collector of manuscript material the world has ever known' (S. de Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts (1530-1930), Cambridge, 1930, p. 119), desired to preserve valuable and important manuscript material from destruction and this led him to amass a collection as remarkable for its scale as for the importance of the pieces; each volume of manuscripts was allocated an accession number (in a series beginning at 1), and by the time of his death the series exceeded 36,000. On his death the collection was bequeathed to his third daughter Mrs J.E.A. Fenwick, and arrangements were made to dispose of the collection; the dispersal commenced with a sale of printed books at Sotheby's on 3 August 1886, and was only completed some 95 years later in 1981.