Indian Company School Hindoo Barber's Wife

An original c.1840s gouache painting – Indian Company School, Hindoo Barber's Wife.

An exceptional Indian Company School painting showing a barber's wife holding a mirror.

This is one of a pair of figures that we have for sale, the other being the male barber (see stock number KD-216). Depictions of local trades were common Company School subjects, capturing figures from everyday Indian life for Western collectors. This example is particuarly fine, relatively large in scale and exquisitely painted in rich, opaque pigment. There is exceptional detail to the costume and jewellery, with opulent touches of gold. In contrast, the patch of ground is more loosely painted in watercolour, with naturalistic tufts of grass, providing an effective counterpoint.

In opaque pigment with watercolour on cream wove paper.

Provenance: from an album of works belonging to Alice (1838–1860) and Mina Morton (1829–1880), daughters of the Irish missionary in India, William Morton, who was at Cossipore and Chinsura, West Bengal, in the 1830s and 1840s. In 1826 he is mentioned as Professor and Chaplain of Calcutta Grammar-School. At Chinsura he worked for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He was proficient in Bengali and published significant works, including A Dictionary of the Bengali Language (1828), A Collection of Proverbs, Bengali and Sanscrit, with their Translation and Application in English (1832), and The Life of Daniel in Bengali (1837).