Painting, courtesan with rose leading anthropomorphic sheep, opaque watercolour and tin alloy on paper, Kalighat, Kolkata, ca. 1865-1870

Painting, in opaque watercolour and tin alloy on paper, Kalighat image of a woman with yellow flesh tones, wearing a green blouse and a red sari with decorative silver trimming (executed in tin alloy). In her right hand the courtesan holds a red rose signifying a symbol of passion, and in her left hand she leads a man with a moustache, wearing a hat and a woolly sheep’s body. Illustration to a Bengali proverb or folk tale.

A woman with yellow flesh tones, wearing a green blouse and a red sari with decorative silver trimming, in her right hand the courtesan holds a red rose signifying a symbol of passion, and in her left hand she leads a man with a moustache, wearing a hat and a woolly sheep’s body. Illustration to a Bengali proverb or folk tale.

Given by the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, to which the series was presented by Mrs. Western of Langbrookside, Havant, Hampshire

This image is alternatively known as 'The Sheepish Lover' an additional joke used by mothers in law at Bengali weddings for teasing of the bridegrooms." I have purchased you with cowries. I have tied you with a rope. I have put a spindle in your hand. Now bleat like a sheep" (Archer:1971, p11).

Historical significance: Archer also comments that this proverbial image has much written about it regarding the dominance of women in Calcutta during the 19th century.(Archer,1971: p54)

IS.239-1953