Picturing India by McAleer John

Author:McAleer, John
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780295742939
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2018-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 4.2 Mughal artist, Shah Jahan in his Durbar, c. 1650 (Add. Or. 3853)

Figure 4.3 Mughal artist, Nadir Shah, King of Persia, c. 1740 (F44)

EUROPEAN ARTISTS AND INDIAN SUBJECTS

As we have seen in the example of Ozias Humphry, one of the consequences of the East India Company’s presence in India was the encouragement it gave to artists to come to India. The life and work of one of the first British professional artists to do so, Tilly Kettle, gives us an insight into the ways in which art – and portraiture in particular – was intimately intertwined with the rise of the East India Company and its involvement in Indian politics and society. A brief summary of Kettle’s career illustrates the breadth of his activity in India and the impact of the subcontinent on his work. In August 1768 Kettle petitioned the Company to travel to Bengal to work as an artist. Permission was granted the following month and he set sail aboard the Nottingham on 24 December 1768, carrying letters of recommendation from Laurence Sulivan, an influential director of the Company. Kettle was the first professional painter to travel to the subcontinent following the Company’s rise to power in the wake of the Battle of Plassey and the granting of the diwani (see Chapter 2). He arrived in Madras in May 1769 and spent two years there. His patrons were composed of local Indian dignitaries, Company merchants and army officers who worked together to cement and extend British control in the region. In an indication of the continued importance of Indian rulers, Kettle’s most significant portraits during his time in Madras were those he did for Muhammed Ali Khan Walla Jah, the Nawab of Arcot. Kettle painted a group portrait of the Nawab with his five sons, which he exhibited at the Society of Artists in London in 1771.

Meanwhile, Kettle had made his way to Calcutta by late 1771. He stayed here briefly before travelling on to Faizabad, apparently at the invitation of Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh, whose portrait he painted on several occasions. During this time Kettle took an Indian bibi, or mistress, with whom he had two daughters. He arrived back in Calcutta in early 1773, where he stayed for a further three years. His return to this hub of British power is not difficult to explain: Calcutta offered a greater range of opportunities for patronage from some of the most important figures in the British administration. Among Kettle’s numerous commissions were portraits of Sir Elijah Impey, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bengal, and Warren Hastings, the Governor-General, whom he painted on at least three separate occasions. Like many of the artists whom we have met in this book, Kettle probably never intended his stay in India to be permanent. In March 1776 he left India on board the Talbot, bound for London, arriving there in mid-November. But India remained central to everything he did. Finding it difficult to attract new clients in London, he relied on the network of patrons that he had established in India.

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