Painting
ca. 1830 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Painting, opaque watercolour on paper, an Englishman wearing white trousers, a green coat, black shoe and top hat is seated on a blue elephant holding a gun, which is held the wrong way round, to shoot a tiger.
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Materials and techniques | Painted in opaque watercolour on paper |
Brief description | Painting, Englishman on elephant shooting tiger, opaque watercolour on paper, Kalighat, Kolkata, ca. 1830 |
Physical description | Painting, opaque watercolour on paper, an Englishman wearing white trousers, a green coat, black shoe and top hat is seated on a blue elephant holding a gun, which is held the wrong way round, to shoot a tiger. |
Dimensions |
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Content description | An Englishman wearing white trousers, a green coat, black shoe and top hat is seated on a blue elephant holding a gun, which is held the wrong way round, to shoot a tiger. |
Style | |
Object history | Normally the hunter would be contained in a howdah, a small enclosure at the back of the elephant, and the elephant would have been driven by a mahout, the elephant trainer. However the artist has edited this image only to the dominant features, the Englishman, gun and tiger. The painter depicted the animal with a tiger's ring marked tail but missed out the tiger's stripes on its body, instead the animal has almost a leopard's spots. Historical significance: Calcutta was recognised as the capital of British India from 1833-1912. By the 1830s, artists (patuas) had arrived from rural villages in Bengal and began to produce paintings that reflected the local history, mythology, customs and conflics of a colonised society. As a popular art form, these artists are recognised for their use of brilliant colour, simplified images and swift and bold brushstrokes that became the hallmark of Kalighat painting in the 19th and early 20th century. |
Subjects depicted | |
Bibliographic references |
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Collection | |
Accession number | IS.209-1950 |
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Record created | November 11, 2002 |
Record URL |
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