COMPANY SCHOOL, CALCUTTA, INDIA, LATE 18TH OR EARLY 19TH CENTURY

This accomplished study depicts the Indian Leopard Cat (Prionailurus Bengalensis) from a side view. The animal appears fully at ease, almost lounging into the frame and turning to the right to observe us. Such a painting, which captures both excellent naturalistic detail as well as character, is typical of Company School painting of this period which is perhaps best represented by the series of animals and birds painted for Sir Elijah and Lady Impey and for Major Nathaniel Rind at Calcutta from 1778 to 1800.
Beyond working in trade, diplomacy and administration, officers of the British East India Company and their families became important artistic patrons giving rise to the so-called Company School of painting. Emerging in the 18th and 19th centuries, Indian artists, many of whom were formally trained in the late-Mughal tradition, adapted their styles capturing the flora and fauna of the Indian subcontinent for their European patrons. Developing beyond formal natural studies, the genre soon came to encompass romanticised views of landcape and architecture to be shipped home to the amazement of those back in Britain.
For a related painting of a cheetah see Stuary Cary Welch, Room for Wonder: Indian Painting during the British Period, 1760-1880, New York, 1978, no.9 and Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, Indian Painting for British Patrons: 1770-1860, London, 1991, no.10.