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拍品專文
Little is known about the artist of this charming and vital drawing. His name does not appear in the East India Company's lists, so presumably he worked freelance. According to Mildred Archer, Green made ink and wash drawings of Indians in both Bengal and Madras, circa 1785-1800. Ten drawings of sepoys are now in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen.
Innes Munro provides an enlightening account of the effect wrought by such temple dancers upon their hapless English witnesses:
'When these damsels begin to dance they do not hop and skip like our stage dancers...but strive by slow and graceful motions, to display the agility and elegance of their bodies and limbs, which are formed by nature in the most perfect symmetry. These they twist into the most wanton postures imaginable, moving in excellent time, though the music is never above one measure successfully repeated. The dancers also accompany the music with amorous songs and a palpitation or heaving of the bosom, calculated to excite in the spectators corresponding desires. In this they are generally very successful, continuing their lascivious gestures till, by the force of imagination and heat of exercise, they become almost frantic with ecstasy, and sink down in the most inviting attitudes motionless with fatigue. The conclusion of this scene it is unnecessary to describe. Where the passions rage in their utmost violence such opportunities of indulgence are not to be lost'.
(Innes Munro, Narratives of the military operations on the Coromandel Coast, London, 1789).
A drawing attributed to Green, depicting a Hurcurra exchanging a letter on a street in Calcutta, was sold at Christie's, London, 21 September 2000, lot 340 (£3,800).
Innes Munro provides an enlightening account of the effect wrought by such temple dancers upon their hapless English witnesses:
'When these damsels begin to dance they do not hop and skip like our stage dancers...but strive by slow and graceful motions, to display the agility and elegance of their bodies and limbs, which are formed by nature in the most perfect symmetry. These they twist into the most wanton postures imaginable, moving in excellent time, though the music is never above one measure successfully repeated. The dancers also accompany the music with amorous songs and a palpitation or heaving of the bosom, calculated to excite in the spectators corresponding desires. In this they are generally very successful, continuing their lascivious gestures till, by the force of imagination and heat of exercise, they become almost frantic with ecstasy, and sink down in the most inviting attitudes motionless with fatigue. The conclusion of this scene it is unnecessary to describe. Where the passions rage in their utmost violence such opportunities of indulgence are not to be lost'.
(Innes Munro, Narratives of the military operations on the Coromandel Coast, London, 1789).
A drawing attributed to Green, depicting a Hurcurra exchanging a letter on a street in Calcutta, was sold at Christie's, London, 21 September 2000, lot 340 (£3,800).