Company painting of an entertainer with monkeys and goats 1780-86

These delightful depictions of travelling entertainers and their performing animals were commissioned by the British East India Company from an unknown artist in either Tanjore (now Thanjavur) or neighbouring Trichinopoly (Tiruchirappalli) in southern India. They represent the genre of ‘Company painting’ which arose out of a desire by European employees of the various trading companies in India to record images of the country, commissioning artists to produce pictures of local interest. Produced by Indian artists in a mixed Indo-European style, Company paintings document a wide spectrum of India’s life and culture. Their crispness and clarity is testament to the suitability of miniature-painting techniques for recording everyday life before the introduction of mobile photography.