An album of Indian watercolours including 74 watercolours of Indian men and women engaged in various occupations, 16 watercolours of Indian birds, and a page inscribed with illuminated initials 'HC'

The style of the present watercolours suggests a date of circa 1820 at the earliest. The present album cannot therefore have been put together by Hubert Cornish, the Company Civil Servant and nephew of the artist of the same name, who left India in 1814. However, it may well have entered the Cornish family at a slightly later date or been collected by another relative in India. The Patna school of ornithological watercolourists grew up around the group of artists employed by Charles D'Oyly for his publication Oriental Ornithology of circa 1830. We are grateful to Jerry Losty of the India Office Library for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.