'The real India lives in its villages'

This beautiful impasto oil painting dates from 1930s India and is associated with the Ishwar Dass School of Arts, Lucknow. Titled 'Sunlight and Shadows', the painting shows a scene in an Indian village of thatched houses, dappled and sculptural in their flattened forms of colour. The paint, chalky and earthen, evokes the land itself.

The identity of P. Banerji is unknown, but there was an artist Ishwar Dass working at Lucknow, about whom there is a 1949 publication, Paintings of Ishwar Dass. He was described as 'one of the best type of Indian painters thrown up by the 20th century renaissance in Indian painting'. His work was not 'confused or burdened' by foreign influence, unlike many painters who had looked towards the West.

The 1930s were an interesting time in the history of Indian art and the development of a modern school. Indian school painting had recently been introduced into the curriculum of national art colleges, and there was an increasing rejection of British commodities and revival of indigenous industries. 'The real India lives in its villages,' Gandhi famously remarked. This painting seems to represent this recentering towards a more authentic expression of Indian art.

The back of the frame bears a framing label of Army & Navy Stores, Calcutta (part of a members-only co-operative society, established 1901), suggesting that the painting was purchased by a British officer.

Stock number JY-211