THE WASHERMAN AND HIS WOMEN
INDIA, BENGAL, MUSHIDABAD, CIRCA 1790
£43,951
Auction: Indian Paintings from the Collection of William & Mildred Archer | Lots 84 to 152 | 12 June at 10am
Description
gouache on card, red border, depicting a washerman in a white turban and dhoti sitting smoking his pipe while his eight women are washing the clothes, beating them on stones, and spreading them out to dry, dhotis, turban cloths, skirts, and pyjamas lie stretched on the ground, in the background two white bullocks, two pink houses, and a line of dar trees against a blue sky, mounted, glazed and framed
Dimensions
Folio: 18.5cm x 25.4cm (17 1/4in x 10in)
Provenance
Acquired before 1948.
Footnote
Exhibited:
1963-1964, circulated by the Smithsonian Institute, USA, and exhibited in Ohio, Indianapolis, Richmond, New Hampshire and Ottawa.
26 May to 19 June 1965, Wildenstein Gallery, London.
Loan to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, from 1994 to 2004.
Literature:
W. G. Archer, Indian Miniatures from the Collection of Mildred and William Archer, Exhibition Catalogue, Washington, 1963, no. 74 (black and white illustration).
M. Archer, Romance and poetry in Indian Painting, London, 1965, no. 73 (not illustrated).
W G Archer classifies the painting under ‘Company Style’ with the following note:
‘A school of painting similar to that in Patna and Lucknow existed under the Nawabs at Murshidabad in the eighteenth century. With the coming of the British to Calcutta and Bengal, this was one of the first areas that began to produce pictures for the British. Studies of occupations were particularly popular with British residents.’