The hook-swinging festival (charak puja), attributed to the artist Sewak Ram

Patna, early 19th Century

Footnotes

Provenance
General Sir George Nugent, 1st Bt. (1757-1849), Commander-in-Chief, India, 1811-13, & Maria, Lady Nugent.
Thence by descent via the Nugents to the current owners.

The artist Sewak Ram, who came from Murshidabad, was working in Patna by around 1790, until circa 1826. His style is quite distinctive when set against other Company School work, with a more European approach to modelling, as well as a tendency to favour depictions of large, closely-packed crowds, although he seems to have had more than one manner of painting (see lot 171 in this sale for a different approach and palette). Two large procession scenes by Sewak Ram were in the exhibition held at Bonhams recently (In Good Company: an exhibition of fine Indian Paintings under the influence of the Raj from a private collection, 9th-17th January 2020, nos. 14 and 15).

For the hook-swinging festival, see the note to lot 176. The difference in the portrayal of the subject between the two is notable: Sewak Ram packs his crowd tightly in the centre of the composition, with a receding effect in his habitual way, and his setting is a more urban, even suburban one; while that of lot 176 is more pastoral, a more private celebration of the rite in the Bengal countryside. We can perhaps see why Sewak Ram's painting might have appealed to Lady Nugent in a passage from her diary relating a procession in Farrukhabad in February 1813, in which she noted that 'the mob had really the most picturesque appearance, for the different coloured turbans looked like a bed of tulips' (Cohen, op. cit., p. 228).

The Nugents went through Patna on their tour in July and August 1812, and again on the return journey in 1813. On the earlier date, she records that she 'arranged the drawings I bought at Patna' (p. 106); and on the later: 'All the morning crowded with visitors, tradesmen, &c. Bought a great many drawings' (p. 272).