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拍品專文
The watercolours in this album were commissioned by Major Robert Wroughton (1797-1850), who served in the Bengal Army and held the position of Deputy Surveyor General of India.
During the 1830s and 1840s those serving in the forces in India experienced a period of peace and thus filled their time with other official duties and various leisure pursuits such as the study of natural history.
The inscription in the album which records the local artist as a former painter on talc (or mica), suggests that he was a native of Patna or possibly Benares as it was in these two areas that the artists used mica for their painting (see M. Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library, London, 1972, pp. 134-5 and 146-154).
The watercolours in the album, in particular that on page 125, can be compared to a watercolour of an exotic insect by the artist Seetu Ram (fl. 1820) illustrated in P. Pal and V. Dehejia, From Merchants to Emporers British Artists and India, 1757-1930, London, 1986, pp. 166 and 168, pl. 174 and sold at Christie's London, 25 May 1995, lot 27 (£6,900).
After Wroughton's death the album passed to his son-in-law George William Wright Fulton (1825-1857), who was killed in the siege of Lucknow, and then to his son Colonel Robert Fulton of the Indian Staff Corps.
Many of the insects and butterflies have been identified by one of the previous owners of the album using various classification including that of Linnaeus. Some of the inscriptions have been transcribed, but the classification is sometimes only tentatively suggested.
During the 1830s and 1840s those serving in the forces in India experienced a period of peace and thus filled their time with other official duties and various leisure pursuits such as the study of natural history.
The inscription in the album which records the local artist as a former painter on talc (or mica), suggests that he was a native of Patna or possibly Benares as it was in these two areas that the artists used mica for their painting (see M. Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library, London, 1972, pp. 134-5 and 146-154).
The watercolours in the album, in particular that on page 125, can be compared to a watercolour of an exotic insect by the artist Seetu Ram (fl. 1820) illustrated in P. Pal and V. Dehejia, From Merchants to Emporers British Artists and India, 1757-1930, London, 1986, pp. 166 and 168, pl. 174 and sold at Christie's London, 25 May 1995, lot 27 (£6,900).
After Wroughton's death the album passed to his son-in-law George William Wright Fulton (1825-1857), who was killed in the siege of Lucknow, and then to his son Colonel Robert Fulton of the Indian Staff Corps.
Many of the insects and butterflies have been identified by one of the previous owners of the album using various classification including that of Linnaeus. Some of the inscriptions have been transcribed, but the classification is sometimes only tentatively suggested.