CIRCLE OF BHAWANI DAS, CALCUTTA, CIRCA 1778-82

This rare group of Company School watercolour paintings follows in the footsteps of a relatively unknown series of paintings of snakes by the artist Bhawani Das who was commissioned by Lady Elijah Impey to produce paintings of her collection of animals and fauna on her estate outside Calcutta. Bhawani Das is more frequently known for his depictions of birds and mammals. A few unpublished paintings of snakes signed by Bhawani Das produced for the Impey Album are now in the collection of the Wellcome Library in London (inv. 566384i, 566431i, 566421i, 566414i, 566427i, 566432i). These comparable works, like ours, were all painted on identical J. Whatman watermarked paper with a central crease which can be dated to the late 18th century. It appears as if all four of our paintings have been cropped and reduced in size. The first painting in the series of an Indian python has an identification inscription in nasta’liq in the lower left hand corner. It is partially trimmed, but this painting along with one other from the series are numbered in the lower right hand corner in a very similar manner to the Wellcome Library paintings. This would suggest that our folios were produced in Calcutta possibly in the same studio where Bhawani Das and the other artists were working on the Impey Album.