Lot Essay
William Prinsep was the fifth son of John Prinsep, an East India Company merchant, who traded in Calcutta in indigo and chintz. William arrived in Calcutta in 1817 where he lived until his retirement in 1842. After the failure of Palmer and Co. in 1830, the company he joined on his arrival in India, he and his older brother George set up a prosperous mercantile, banking and agency house with Dwarkanath Tagore. By the 1820s William was taking lessons from George Chinnery.