Oliver White
Head of Department
Lot 288
Attributed to Shaykh Muhammad Amir of Karraya: a bhishti (water carrier) Calcutta, circa 1840
8 April 2014, 10:30 BST
London, New Bond Street£2,000 - £3,000
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Attributed to Shaykh Muhammad Amir of Karraya: a bhishti (water carrier)
Calcutta, circa 1840
Calcutta, circa 1840
watercolour on paper, framed
225 x 175 mm.
225 x 175 mm.
Footnotes
Shaykh Muhammad Amir came from Karraya, an outlying district of Calcutta, and was the best-known artist working for the British in that city. His career began in the 1830s and his watercolours of the grand buildings of Calcutta, its gardens, animals and servants, were popular commissions from his British patrons, capturing well the elegance of the period (see, for instance, Welch no. 24, one of an album of paintings commissioned by a Thomas Holroyd Esq. in the late 1830s). While Shaykh Muhammad Amir was arguably the greatest exponent of watercolour painting in Calcutta at this time, such was the demand for his work that he seems to have employed assistants.
For examples of his work see: S. C. Welch, Room for Wonder: Indian Painting during the British Period 1760-1880, New York 1978, pp. 67-72, nos. 20-24; M. Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library, London 1972, cat. no. 61; M. Archer, Company Paintings, London 1992, nos. 80 and 81; and the sale in these rooms, Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 10th April 2008, lots 117 and 118.
For an almost identical portrayal of the individual portrayed in the present lot, see Christie's, Visions of India, 5th October 1999, lot 115.