Not on display

A groom with a horse and carriage

Painting
ca. 1845 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings. This is one of two pictures from a set made for a Calcutta resident, showing his house, servants, and pets. The distinguished Company artist Shaikh Muhammad Amir painted them. He worked in the Karraya suburb of Calcutta. From about the 1780s, British residents began to move out of the city centre to the pleasant new suburbs of Chowringhee and Garden Reach. It was here that local artists found plenty of work. Shaikh Muhammad Amir specialised in paintings of the houses and domestic staff of British suburbanites.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleA groom with a horse and carriage (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Opaque watercolour on paper
Brief description
Painting; a groom with a horse and carriage, Calcutta, ca. 1845
Physical description
Artists working at Calcutta portrayed the residences of the British, their servants and carriages, as illustrated in this painting of a groom with a horse and carriage. The groom holds in one hand a fly whisk for the horse and with the other he leads the horse by harness.
Dimensions
  • Height: 29cm
  • Width: 45cm
Style
Marks and inscriptions
Shaikh Muhammad Amir Musawwir, resident of Karaya. (Inscription; decoration; Persian; Persian; lower right of picture; ink)
Gallery label
(01/08/2017)
GROOM WITH
A HORSE AND CARRIAGE
Shaikh Muhammad Amir
Watercolour on paper, inscribed in ink
Calcutta (Kolkata),
West Bengal
c. 1845
IS.5-1957
Shaikh Muhammad Amir was a prolific artist based in Karraya, Calcutta and active between 1840s and ‘50s. He showed particular skill in his attention to detail. A keen observer of the lives of the British residents, he depicted their homes, carriages, domestic servants and pets. There are three paintings by him in the V&A collection.
Subjects depicted
Summary
The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings. This is one of two pictures from a set made for a Calcutta resident, showing his house, servants, and pets. The distinguished Company artist Shaikh Muhammad Amir painted them. He worked in the Karraya suburb of Calcutta. From about the 1780s, British residents began to move out of the city centre to the pleasant new suburbs of Chowringhee and Garden Reach. It was here that local artists found plenty of work. Shaikh Muhammad Amir specialised in paintings of the houses and domestic staff of British suburbanites.
Bibliographic references
  • Swallow, Deborah and John Guy eds. Arts of India: 1550-1900. text by Rosemary Crill, John Guy, Veronica Murphy, Susan Stronge and Deborah Swallow. London : V&A Publications, 1990. 240 p., ill. ISBN 1851770224, p.198, pl.173. Archer, Mildred. Company Paintings Indian Paintings of the British period Victoria and Albert Museum Indian Series London: Victoria and Albert Museum, Maplin Publishing, 1992, 105 p ISBN 0944142303
  • Arts of Bengal : the heritage of Bangladesh and eastern India : an exhibition organized by the Whitechapel Art Gallery in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum : 9 November-30 December 1979, Whitechapel Art Gallery ..., 12 January-17 February 1980, Manchester City Art Gallery ... . [London]: Whitechapel Art Gallery, [1979] Number: 085488047X (pbk.) : p.51
Collection
Accession number
IS.5-1957

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Record createdDecember 15, 1999
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