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Lot Essay
This painting comes from the celebrated Fraser Album - an extraordinary series of paintings that stand as one of the finest visual records of life in early 19th century India. Commissioned by William Fraser (1784-1835) and his brother James Baillie Fraser (1783-1856), the paintings are an unmatched record of the social, cultural and everyday life of Delhi’s rural and urban residents.
William and James Baillie Fraser were Scotsmen who served in India. William Fraser, the younger son of Edward Fraser of Reelig, Inverness, arrived in India in 1801 and rose through the ranks of the East India Company’s political service. His deep engagement with local communities and landscapes, especially around Delhi and Garhwal, exposed him to a wide cross-section of society. In 1814, his brother James joined him in India as a merchant in Calcutta. The brothers travelled through the Himalayas and on that trip, James Fraser, himself an accomplished amateur artist, began to record the landscapes, monuments and people he encountered in drawings and paintings, which are reflected in his diary entries. In their attempts to record all that they saw, William also hired local artists to ‘take the likenesses of several of the servants and the Ghorkas’ (Mildred Archer and Toby Falk, India Revealed. The Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35, London, 1989, p.45). Returning to Delhi in August 1815 the brothers encouraged further artists to record Mughal court dancers and singers beginning the five-year project which became ‘The Fraser Album’.
The Fraser brothers’ initial commissions included portraits of nautch dancers seen at social gatherings. Whilst James returned to Calcutta in 1816 and later to Scotland in 1820, William continued to commission works over the next several years.
Most of the Fraser Album watercolours are attributed to a master artist from the circle of Ghulam Ali Khan, with select works attributed directly to Ghulam Ali Khan himself. Others, particularly of the nautch dancers are attributed to Lalji or Hulas Lal. These artists were familiar with the art of portraiture from their own tradition but were suddenly alive to the expectations of the ‘sahibs’. The resulting portraits - some recording single figures and others well-knit groups - are alive with psychological intensity and immediacy. As Goswamy writes “well ahead of the coming of the camera, these portraits come as close as possible to “telling it as it is”: honest and evocative, and in many cases moving in their humanity” (B.N. Goswamy, ‘Masters of the Company Portraits’ in M.C. Beach, E. Fischer and B.N. Goswamy (eds.), Masters of Indian Painting, vol.2, 2011 p.769).
Several paintings from the Fraser album, like ours, show more heavily worked scenes, where the figures – who always form the focus of the paintings – are surrounded by populated village scenes, architecture or landscapes. Many of these scenes are set in the district of Haryana. It is unclear what the walled town behind our ascetics is, but one possibility is Rania, a town that William frequently visited, approximately 150 miles north-west of Delhi, where he had a bibi, a local Indian companion by the name of Amiban with whom he had a number of children.
The Fraser Album paintings were sent back to Scotland, or returned with James Fraser. They remained in the family’s possession until 1979 when they were discovered among the brothers’ papers in Inverness. Sotheby’s auctioned the group in two sales, the first in London on 7th July 1980 and the rest in New York on 9th December the same year. The group, which occupy a hugely important place in the study of Company School painting, were only really brought to light with the publication of Toby Falk and Mildred Archer’s book India Revealed: The Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35 (London, 1989). The book provided the first overview of the paintings which – in Falk’s words – ‘surpass all known Company portraits’ for their ‘special intensity, […] unusual skill and accomplishment’ (Archer and Falk, 1988).
Today, pages from the Fraser Album are in private and public collections worldwide, including - amongst others - the Islamic Art Museum Malaysia, the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the David Collection, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago. A series of eight paintings from the album recently sold in these Rooms as part of the collection of Prince & Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan, 28 October 2025, lots 40 to 47).
William and James Baillie Fraser were Scotsmen who served in India. William Fraser, the younger son of Edward Fraser of Reelig, Inverness, arrived in India in 1801 and rose through the ranks of the East India Company’s political service. His deep engagement with local communities and landscapes, especially around Delhi and Garhwal, exposed him to a wide cross-section of society. In 1814, his brother James joined him in India as a merchant in Calcutta. The brothers travelled through the Himalayas and on that trip, James Fraser, himself an accomplished amateur artist, began to record the landscapes, monuments and people he encountered in drawings and paintings, which are reflected in his diary entries. In their attempts to record all that they saw, William also hired local artists to ‘take the likenesses of several of the servants and the Ghorkas’ (Mildred Archer and Toby Falk, India Revealed. The Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35, London, 1989, p.45). Returning to Delhi in August 1815 the brothers encouraged further artists to record Mughal court dancers and singers beginning the five-year project which became ‘The Fraser Album’.
The Fraser brothers’ initial commissions included portraits of nautch dancers seen at social gatherings. Whilst James returned to Calcutta in 1816 and later to Scotland in 1820, William continued to commission works over the next several years.
Most of the Fraser Album watercolours are attributed to a master artist from the circle of Ghulam Ali Khan, with select works attributed directly to Ghulam Ali Khan himself. Others, particularly of the nautch dancers are attributed to Lalji or Hulas Lal. These artists were familiar with the art of portraiture from their own tradition but were suddenly alive to the expectations of the ‘sahibs’. The resulting portraits - some recording single figures and others well-knit groups - are alive with psychological intensity and immediacy. As Goswamy writes “well ahead of the coming of the camera, these portraits come as close as possible to “telling it as it is”: honest and evocative, and in many cases moving in their humanity” (B.N. Goswamy, ‘Masters of the Company Portraits’ in M.C. Beach, E. Fischer and B.N. Goswamy (eds.), Masters of Indian Painting, vol.2, 2011 p.769).
Several paintings from the Fraser album, like ours, show more heavily worked scenes, where the figures – who always form the focus of the paintings – are surrounded by populated village scenes, architecture or landscapes. Many of these scenes are set in the district of Haryana. It is unclear what the walled town behind our ascetics is, but one possibility is Rania, a town that William frequently visited, approximately 150 miles north-west of Delhi, where he had a bibi, a local Indian companion by the name of Amiban with whom he had a number of children.
The Fraser Album paintings were sent back to Scotland, or returned with James Fraser. They remained in the family’s possession until 1979 when they were discovered among the brothers’ papers in Inverness. Sotheby’s auctioned the group in two sales, the first in London on 7th July 1980 and the rest in New York on 9th December the same year. The group, which occupy a hugely important place in the study of Company School painting, were only really brought to light with the publication of Toby Falk and Mildred Archer’s book India Revealed: The Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35 (London, 1989). The book provided the first overview of the paintings which – in Falk’s words – ‘surpass all known Company portraits’ for their ‘special intensity, […] unusual skill and accomplishment’ (Archer and Falk, 1988).
Today, pages from the Fraser Album are in private and public collections worldwide, including - amongst others - the Islamic Art Museum Malaysia, the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the David Collection, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago. A series of eight paintings from the album recently sold in these Rooms as part of the collection of Prince & Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan, 28 October 2025, lots 40 to 47).