SOUTH INDIA, 19TH CENTURY

As Indian artists came into contact with the British through the East India Company, they began to absorb European methods of composition and perspective. Sets of watercolours were executed showing men and women of different castes in costumes related to their trade or occupation. An attempt to follow the European tradition of three-dimensionality and volume resulted in dark hoops beneath each figure, representing shadows. Towards the turn of the 18th century, a zig-zag of white was introduced across the sky to delineate a great cumulus cloud, and the landscape of diminutive trees, bushes and thatched huts across the horizon became more precise. A similar album of 36 watercolours, dated circa 1805, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, (AL.9254:1-36). The present collection, most of which can be dated around the same time extravagantly heightened with gold paint.

A similar set of watercolours depicting tradesmen sold at in these Rooms, 27 September 2001, lot 31; 7 October 2009, lot 140; 10 June 2013, lot 40.