PROBABLY CALCUTTA, EAST INDIA, CIRCA 1800 AD

Major James Nathaniel Rind (d. 1814) was an enthusiastic observer of Indian life and a collector of paintings. A Scotsman, he was in India from 1778 to 1804 (or 1801?) and served in the 18th Native Infantry. He retired as a brigade major in Calcutta in 1801. Although he spent most of his service in western India and Delhi, it is supposed that he commissioned a large collection of natural history studies, mostly of botanical interest, from the team of Indian artists who had been trained by William Roxburgh, then in charge of the Botanic Gardens. As early as 1800, specimens of fine birds and quadrupeds were also assembled to form what became a few years later the Barrackpore menagerie. Some of the studies are illustrated in Stuart Cary Welch, Room for Wonder - Indian Painting during the British Period 1760-1880, 1978, 12a, b, & c, 13, pp. 45-49 and Hartnoll and Eyre, Indian Painting for the British, 1770-1880, cat 24, 1972, 1-16.