Not on display

Cotton cultivation in India

Painting
1862 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

William Simpson was born in Glasgow in 1823. At the age of 14 he joined a printing firm, where he learned the art of lithography. In 1859, the London publishing firm William Day and Son commissioned Simpson to visit India and make drawings for a book illustrating well-known places associated with the so-called ‘Indian mutiny’ of 1857, when the Indian army rose against their British officers.

Thus began Simpson’s long connection with India and the first of four visits over the next 25 years. He saw Upper India, the Himalayas, central, southern and western India, and he took an interest in a great range of subjects, making numerous rapid pencil drawings in sketchbooks, often heightened with colour washes. Many formed preparatory studies for his finished watercolours, most of which he worked up after returning to London. But unfortunately, during his absence, Day and Son had experienced financial problems, and in 1867 they went into liquidation. Two years later, 250 of his watercolours were sold as bankrupt stock – ‘the big disaster of my life’, as he put it.

This painting depicts women engaged in harvesting cotton, probably in Rajasthan in north-west India. Cotton is known to have been harvested in India from the second millennium BC. For the Greeks and Romans it was a highly prized luxury fabric, which they imported from India in large quantities. Printed and painted cotton fabric was subsequently a major part of trade with south-east Asia and from the 1660s onwards large quantities of chintz – printed cotton with a glazed finish – were exported to Europe.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleCotton cultivation in India (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on paper
Brief description
Painting of Cotton cultivation in India, by William Simpson, pencil and watercolour on paper, London, 1862
Physical description
Painting of cotton cultivation in India. It shows a vast cotton plantation surrounded by indigenous dwellings. Local women, dressed in a traditional skirt and blouse with a dupatta (long scarf) over their head, collect the cotton bolls in cloth bundles attached to their waist. In the background, a farmer ploughs the land using oxen.
Dimensions
  • Height: 10in
  • Width: 14in
Marks and inscriptions
Cotton cultivation in India. Wm. Simpson 1862.
Credit line
Purchased from Messrs Day and Son Ltd (London) in 1869
Object history
Simpson, William (1823-1899). Painter and lithographer. Simpson was apprenticed to a lithographer in Glasgow and in 1851 came to London where he made views of the Great Exhibition. He became well known for his paintings with commissions by Queen Victoria to paint various important events in her reign. In 1859 the publishers, Day and Son, commissioned him to make drawings of India. On his return he produced "India, ancient and modern" (London, 1867), a series of illustrations of the country and its people. Later in 1876, he accompanied the Prince of Wales to India and published "Shikare and Tomasha, a souvenir of the visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to India (London, 1876).
Subject depicted
Summary
William Simpson was born in Glasgow in 1823. At the age of 14 he joined a printing firm, where he learned the art of lithography. In 1859, the London publishing firm William Day and Son commissioned Simpson to visit India and make drawings for a book illustrating well-known places associated with the so-called ‘Indian mutiny’ of 1857, when the Indian army rose against their British officers.

Thus began Simpson’s long connection with India and the first of four visits over the next 25 years. He saw Upper India, the Himalayas, central, southern and western India, and he took an interest in a great range of subjects, making numerous rapid pencil drawings in sketchbooks, often heightened with colour washes. Many formed preparatory studies for his finished watercolours, most of which he worked up after returning to London. But unfortunately, during his absence, Day and Son had experienced financial problems, and in 1867 they went into liquidation. Two years later, 250 of his watercolours were sold as bankrupt stock – ‘the big disaster of my life’, as he put it.

This painting depicts women engaged in harvesting cotton, probably in Rajasthan in north-west India. Cotton is known to have been harvested in India from the second millennium BC. For the Greeks and Romans it was a highly prized luxury fabric, which they imported from India in large quantities. Printed and painted cotton fabric was subsequently a major part of trade with south-east Asia and from the 1660s onwards large quantities of chintz – printed cotton with a glazed finish – were exported to Europe.
Bibliographic reference
Registered File number RF/1869/6716
Collection
Accession number
1161-1869

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Record createdJanuary 24, 2003
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