Tanjore (Southern India)
Opaque watercolour on European paper
The potter’s wife holds a paddle and applies the finishing touches to a pot she carries, with other pots placed on the ground around her. She wears a dark blue saree with stripes and a red border, tied to leave her right breast uncovered, along with gold ornaments including earrings, armlets and bangles. Heavy looped shadows are attached to her feet, with a dark green ground and the subject placed against a white background.
The term ‘Company Painting’ has come to be used by art historians for a special type of Indian painting which was produced for mainly British patrons. It was an attempt by Indian artists to adjust their styles to British needs and to paint subjects that appealed to them. They first made an appearance in the Madras Presidency in the mid-18th century and subsequently in Murshidabad, Patna, Benares, Calcutta, Delhi, Punjab, and Western India. The paintings depict in great detail the architecture, costumes, trades, modes of transport, festivals, customs, and flora and fauna of the period. They thus also served as authentic records—used to illustrate letters, journals, travel narratives, and more—and remain invaluable documents of a way of life that had endured for centuries but is now rapidly vanishing.
In Tanjore, Company painting was first influenced by the traditions of Hyderabad, where figures were depicted against plain, brightly coloured backgrounds with a band of turbulent cloud. Migrant artists from Hyderabad introduced this style to Tanjore in the late eighteenth century, where it evolved to feature men and women holding tools of their trade, initially set against vivid blue or yellow grounds. By around 1800, more naturalistic backgrounds with trees, bushes, and village scenes emerged, although the earlier idiom persisted well into the nineteenth century.
Painting Size (cms): 19.5(H) x 11(W)
Painting Size (inches): 7.5(H) x 4.5(W)
