Description
Book SynopsisPublished to coincide with the first UK exhibition of these masterworks at The Wallace Collection, Forgotten Masters celebrates the work of a series of extraordinary Indian artists. As the East India Company extended its sway across India in the late eighteenth century, many remarkable artworks were commissioned by Company officials from Indian painters who had previously worked for the Mughals. Each had their own style, tastes and agency, and all of them worked for British patrons between the 1770s and the bloody end of the Mughal rule in 1857. Edited by writer and historian William Dalrymple, these hybrid paintings explore both the beauty of the Indian natural world and the social realities of the time in one hundred masterpieces, often of astonishing brilliance and originality. They shed light on a forgotten moment in Anglo-Indian history during which Indian artists responded to European influences while keeping intact their own artistic visions and styles. These artists represent the last phase of Indian artistic genius before the onset of the twin assaults - photography and the influence of western colonial art schools - ended an unbroken tradition of painting going back two thousand years. As these masterworks show, the greatest of these painters deserve to be remembered as among the most remarkable Indian artists of all time.
Trade ReviewThe book accompanying the exhibition is far more than just a catalogue….this [is] the best and most handsome book on the subject currently available. -- Peter Parker * Literary Review *
He does a sensitive, subtle job of reframing the argument by focusing attention back on the artists, who fashioned a captivating hybrid style that drew on European and Mughal models. -- Alastair Sooke * The Daily Telegraph *
Table of ContentsDirector’s Foreword
Xavier Bray Introduction
William Dalrymple The Master Artists of Lucknow Painting in Lucknow 1776–1799
Rosie Llewellyn-Jones The Master Artists of the Impey Album The natural history paintings of Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Bhawani Das and Ram Das
Andrew Topsfield The Natural World Indian Export Art? The botanical drawings
H.J. Noltie The Bengali artist Haludar
Malini Roy Shaikh Muhammad Amir of Karraya and Yellapah of Vellore Bespoke: painting to order in 1830s Calcutta and Vellore
Lucian Harris The Late Mughal Master Artists of Delhi And Agra Ghulam Ali Khan and the Delhi School of Painting
Yuthika Sharma Sita Ram and the Hastings Albums Sita Ram
J.P. Losty
