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Company painting, with its ethnographic focus on customs, ceremonies and trades, has origins that can be traced back to the sixteenth century, particularly with regard to the kind of themes that were depicted. Early European engagement with India – especially by the Portuguese, French and Italians– laid the foundation for this visual tradition.
It was only after the British East India Company obtained commercial monopoly on Eastern shores that Company Painting or the kampani Qalam tradition flourished, in the late eighteenth century – much later than they first arrived in India.
Understanding the ‘customs, manners, manufactures, and habits’ of India – alongside its history, literature and religion – was believed to aid governance and justify the subservient position of native populations. The drive to document India ‘authentically’ gave rise to a wave of British artists who travelled across the subcontinent under the patronage of the EIC.
These paintings, often accompanied by travelogues and commentary, sought to present India in ways that resonated with European sensibilities and imperial ambitions.
However, it soon became evident that local artists, with deeper knowledge and understanding of these subjects (and certain aspects of Indian life), were better suited for the task. Indian artists, trained in the preceding Mughal miniature traditions, welcomed this patronage in a climate where indigenous patronage was declining. They quickly adapted to European demands, incorporating Western stylistic influences while retaining elements of their own Mughal and Nawabi artistic styles.
Under British patronage, Indian artists moved away from courtly depictions and imperial portraits to focus on the common man – artisans, labourers and tradespeople.
This thematic transition aligned with the British colonial objective to systematically study, document and categorise every aspect of Indian society for strategic governance and knowledge-production.
Over time, trades and caste albums began to proliferate, as evidenced by collections housed in the India Office Library and the V&A – the largest repositories of Company paintings in the world. These albums documented various professions and occupations, some of which include nautch girls (dancing girls), cazees (Muslim judges), sepoys, toddy tappers and snake charmers. They catered to British curiosity while satisfying European audience’s fascination with the ‘exoticism’ of Indian life.
Bound into portable albums, they followed Western conventions but retained the stylistic nuances of Indian artists. They combined scientific precision with artistic flair, offering European audiences both visual pleasure and a sense of intellectual authority over the colonised subjects.
Another significant figure whose contributions were relevant in this context was Captain Charles Gold.
Charles Gold started as a gentleman cadet in the Royal Artillery in 1776. He served in Cornwallis’s campaign against Tipu Sultan in 1791-92 and eventually rose to the rank of colonel by 1825. Between 1791 and 1798, he produced sketches that would later be published in Oriental Drawings.
Gold’s book serves to act as a companion to understanding South India, particularly the Carnatic and Mysore regions.
Though lacking ethnographical precision, Gold’s work possibly fulfilled its objective of introducing contemporary audiences to the various castes, occupations, and cultural and religious practices of the time. Some of the professions and occupations depicted include sepoys, dubashes, barbers and jugglers. Interspersed among these depictions are architectural scenes, such as the pagoda, the gateways of Moorish architecture, and Lal Bagh, as well as descriptions of deities like Hanuman, marriage processions and musical instruments. These inclusions hint at Gold’s attempt to present a well-rounded portrayal of Indian life.
His straightforward descriptions also offer a peek into the political context, and capture people and their clothes, etc., in the quintessential manner of trades albums. In works like A Sepoy of Tipoo Sultaun’s Regular Infantry, Gold describes the purple uniform with white diamond- like spots, known as the Tiger Jacket, as well as the muslin turban, cummerbund and French musket.
The scene’s backdrop – a landscape of paddy fields and rivers near Srirangapatna – adds a geographical and political dimension to his record. However, most of Gold’s depictions reflect the Orientalist biases of his time. His accompanying letterpress often frames Indian customs and people as ‘barbaric’ or ‘uncivilized’, revealing the colonial mindset that justified British intervention. For instance, in Coolies at Dinner on the Road, Gold remarks: ‘The natives of India, though a refined and luxurious race of people, have not yet emerged from barbarism in some of their manners and customs.’
Such commentary underscores the British perception of their role as civilisers of an ‘exotic’ and ‘primitive’ land.
Gold’s observations on caste are equally revealing. In describing the dining practices of coolies, he notes that caste distinctions dictate their eating arrangements, with individuals of different castes eating separately to avoid contamination.
‘The highest ranks of Brahmins, Gentoos and Tamuls, feed themselves with the bare hand, and squat down to their victuals as monkeys. Rice is the principal ingredient of their food, with a vegetable curry, and if not of a very high sect or cast, mutton and fish are allowable, which they generally eat off plates made with leaves of the portia tree . . .This dynamic is further illustrated in A Village Church with Indians Worshipping the God Pollear, where he observes: ‘Each pagoda has two statues . . . to which the people make their offerings, and the other within, to which they are presented through the medium of Brahmins, who have the sole right of approaching it.’
In his description of a ‘Moorish Fakir’ with regard to Muharram festivities in Trichonopoly, near Madras, he says, ‘During several days, the sepoys and lower orders of Mahometan inhabitants . . . parade the town in grotesque dresses, forming most hideous and ridiculous groups of figures, who caper and dance about like madmen to the incessant din of tom-toms, and without any ceremony play their tricks and jokes on the by-standers and passengers . . . Most of the performers in this tragicomedy are nearly naked and have their skins rubbed over with whitening, which gives them a frightful and ghastly look.’
Gold’s portrayal of women, in Female Brahmins, Carrying Water from the Well, combines the male gaze with racialised commentary. He describes the women of the Coromandel coast as ‘having good figures, and some with so pleasing and delicate features,’ but, he adds, ‘were it not for their complexions, they might be termed beautiful.’
He then shifts to an ethnographic tone, describing the Brahmin sect’s distinctive forehead marks and the women’s sarees, which he describes as ‘a single cotton cloth, of fine texture; or of coloured silk, wove[n] in small pieces for the purpose; which embraces the waist in several folds . . .’
He considers this as an opportune moment to comment on the status of widows in Indian society, particularly older women, whom he describes as being ‘doomed to end their life in servitude’ and credits the British for abolishing Sati. Even in this depiction, as the title suggests, a caste angle persists.
Gold observes, ‘In the background is a well, which though in the open road, is held sacred, and kept solely for the use of Brahmin families, and others of high distinction: those appropriated by the Pariah, or low cast, are near their own habitations, and distinguished by having the bones of animals strewn around them, that they may be known and avoided as contagious.’
Some drawings and their descriptions subtly emphasise the benevolence of British rule and the positive impact they claimed to bring. In the description of the Pagoda drawing, for instance, one senses an appreciation for India’s antiquity, quickly overshadowed by a critique of its present neglect and the lack of interest in maintaining and building of such structures:
‘These structures are generally ancient, and very few are found of modern date; which may be either attributed to the poverty, or diminished enthusiasm of the present race . . . the most antique of these venerable edifices are believed by the Hindoos to have withstood warfare of time for nearly five thousand years and from their solid formations it cannot be doubted that their ages are very great; but probably may never be known, as the inscriptions which appear on them are either nearly obliterated or engraven in illegible characters.’
Observations like these neatly align with the colonial narrative of the British as guardians and preservers of India’s cultural heritage, implicitly contrasting their role with what they viewed as the apathy of India’s contemporary society. Similarly, in his exploration of the ‘exotic’, Gold delves into topics such as snakes and snake-men, underscoring what he perceives as the lack of natural history studies among the natives. He contrasts this absence with the benefits of systematic observation, positioning such efforts as the hallmark of European intellectualism.
By frequently referencing esteemed European naturalists, Gold reinforces the colonial narrative of British intellectual superiority while framing his work as both ethnographic and scientific.
Trades albums, on the one hand, offer glimpses into disappearing occupations and crafts, while on the other, reveal colonial hierarchies that shaped their creation. Warriors and officers were often depicted as Europeans, while Indians were shown in servile and lesser important roles – teachers, mendicants (sattaneys), milkmen, fishermen (bestas), tank diggers and potters. Notably, these paintings also ‘contrast India with the newly developing industrial revolution in Europe,’ idealising ‘the hand industry of village life.’
In doing so, such visual narratives and accounts highlight the entrenched caste hierarchies of the time while reinforcing Gold’s Orientalist lens. That the British often misunderstood or oversimplified Indian customs and traditions is evident in works like Gold’s. However, the irony lies in how these colonial records – intended to assert British superiority – have had lasting implications.
The caste hierarchies and social discrimination perpetuated in works like Oriental Drawings continue to resonate in contemporary India, where caste-based biases and discriminations remain pervasive.
Trades albums, while serving as tools of colonial control, raise questions about whether they further entrenched caste hierarchies, selectively reinforcing the authority of upper castes. This underscores the enduring impact of colonial ideologies on postcolonial societies and challenges us to critically engage with Company trades albums and records such as Gold’s as both historical artefacts and tools of systemic oppression.
All images courtesy DAG.
This an excerpt, edited for length, of the essay Picturing the Other Trades Albums of Company Painting & Captain Charles Gold from the book A Treasury of Life: Indian Company Paintings c. 1795–1830, accompanying the eponymous DAG exhibit on display at DAG, New Delhi till July 5.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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