William Carpenter (1818-99) and Percy Carpenter (1820-95): Two members of the artistic Carpenter family travelled widely in India and in the Far East. William Carpenter spent several years in northern India between 1850 and 1857, while his younger brother, Percy, visited Singapore, Ceylon and Calcutta, between about 1855 and 1860, having travelled via the Far East. Whether or not they met in India remains unclear. William left, probably from Bombay and almost certainly before the uprising in May 1857, while Percy arrived in Calcutta once these troubles had subsided. Their mother was the professional portrait painter, Margaret Sarah Carpenter. She also painted genre scenes and exhibited at the Royal Academy. William Hookham Carpenter, their father (son of a Bond Street bookseller), became Keeper of the Prints and Drawings Department at the British Museum in 1845. Percy entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1838 and began exhibiting in 1841. In 1858, he exhibited a panoramic oil painting of Singapore as viewed from Mount Wallich, which was lithographed by Vincent Brooks and published in London the same year. By early 1859, Percy had reached Calcutta, where field sports became his speciality. In early 1860, the Bengal Tent Club commissioned Percy to make drawings of a pig-sticking event to be held in March that year. Its members suggested that the drawings should be published, and accordingly prepared a subscription list. Eight of Percy’s pictures were lithographed by Edmund Walker and published by Day and Son in London as Hog Hunting in Lower Bengal. In the introduction, Percy reported that the meet, ‘this most spirit-stirring and exciting of all sports’, had been held on the ‘Sowerra Burrea Plains, near Tamluk’, about fifty miles southeast of Calcutta, and that thirty-seven hogs were killed during the three-day hunt. One scene portrayed twelve members of the Tent Club plus their guests relaxing in the open air, taking refreshments. By the time the work was published in 1861, Percy had probably arrived back in London. William Carpenter, the eldest son, was essentially a watercolour artist, though he painted in oils early in his career. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1835, where he exhibited portraits, literary and historical subjects before leaving for India. Exactly why William went is not known but Percy’s experiences may have encouraged him. It is possible that The Illustrated London News, which was publishing articles about India, commissioned him to record people and scenes in the country. Illustrations in colour and black and white from his Indian watercolours appeared in the journal between September 1857 and October 1859. Apart from the watercolours reproduced in The Illustrated London News, William’s work was seldom published in print form. Nor did he exhibit many Indian scenes publicly except for five pictures, four of which portrayed scenes in Kashmir, at the Royal Academy in 1857, 1858 and 1866. Among the mid-19th century professional artists who went to India, William Carpenter is relatively unknown. However, the V&A holds the largest and finest collection of his Indian watercolours, acquired as a result of the major, one-man exhibition held in the Indian Section of the South Kensington Museum in 1881. All but one of the entire collection comprising 275 watercolours (another was acquired in 1885) was displayed at the time. As the exhibition catalogue explained: ‘They [the pictures] will be found of great value and interest to visitors, not only as representing the scenery and architecture of the country, but also as illustrating the daily life of the native inhabitants, and the uses of many of the implements, vessels, personal decorations, &c, comprised in the collection of examples of the industrial arts of India.’ The exhibition would have created an illuminating array of pictorial images that paid tribute to Carpenter’s vision of India. They vividly captured the character of his sitters and the glowing effects of sunlight in the populous cityscapes, enhancing the architectural monuments to great effect. The extra picture was entitled ‘Tree Worship, Rajasthan’. William Carpenter had set off for India by the overland route, seeing Egypt among many other places along the way, in early 1850. Within a few months, and certainly by June, he had reached Bombay. Since no journal of Carpenter’s travels is known, his extensive itineraries are best judged from dated watercolours, though they do not provide a complete outline of his seven years of travel. His first year was spent in Bombay and parts of western India. In June 1850, shortly after his arrival, he went to Poona, situated almost two thousand feet up in the Western Ghats, probably to escape from the heat and humidity of the monsoon season in Bombay and to explore the surrounding country. Scenes painted in Poona include vivid studies of the courtyard of an old Maratha Palace used as a school for Hindu children, the Gateway of Shanwar

...continued In Bombay, Carpenter may have stayed with Sir William Yardley (1810-78), Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court. Carpenter’s interest in local life further manifested itself in a series of studies, including street scenes in the Indian areas, a young girl from Madras, religious mendicants at Breach Candy, and a Toddy-drawer and his family at their home near Breach Candy. A local excursion to the nearby Salsette islands during Christmas and the New Year of 1850-51 included visits to Mount Mary Church at Bandra (on Christmas day), the Kanheri Caves, a sail in a bunder boat up Thana Creek, then through Bassein Creek to the Portuguese ruins of Bassein itself, then back to Bombay via Ghorbandar and the Caves of Montpezier. In February 1851, Carpenter almost certainly went to Ajanta, where he probably stayed with Robert Gill (1804-75), who had been living at the site since 1846, making a pictorial record of the caves and their paintings. Carpenter’s watercolours made at Ajanta include a view across the valley from Gill’s residence. From Ajanta Carpenter then made his way via Asirgarh and Mandhata, where he met Daulat Rao, to Indore. He visited the imposing palace at Maheshwar, former capital (until 1738) of the princely Maratha family of Holkar, overlooking the Narbada River. In March 1851, he also met the family, probably at their new capital, Indore, where he painted the Maharaja, Tukoji Rao Holkar (1833-86), who had been ruling since 1844, when he was a minor. Carpenter’s watercolour was reproduced as a black-and-white illustration in The Illustrated London News of 10 October 1857. Its accompanying account (giving a brief history of the Holkar family), notes that Carpenter’s original watercolour, depicting the eighteen-year-old prince seated with two attendants holding fly-whisks, was made in 1851 ‘at the time he came of age and was placed on the Gudhee [throne].’ Another watercolour exists, which shows the ‘Durbar at the Installation of Holkar, Indore’, a grand ceremony with guests and attendants, taking place under a canopy. Since this event almost certainly took place in 1852, Carpenter was probably invited back to Indore for the formalities when Maharaja Tukoji Rao Holkar attained his majority and the prince was finally entrusted with full responsibility for running the State of Indore. Between the two visits to Indore, Carpenter went to Baroda, Ahmadabad, and Mount Abu, where he painted the celebrated Jain Dilwara temples and many other views of this celebrated pilgrimage place in Rajasthan. In Baroda, he met the Gaekwar, Ganpat Rao, and painted his portrait. Nor was there any lack of commissions for portraits of the people he met. They included princes, their families, especially the children, and retainers. Some he probably stayed within their palaces. While painting their portraits from life, Carpenter paid special attention to their dazzling costumes and glittering jewelry. He also painted many scenic views, frequently thronged with local people, whose dress invariably enhanced the spectacle that had caught his eye. By June 1851, he had reached Udaipur where he spent at the court of the Maharana Sarup Singh. He also painted the court painter, Tara Chand with two of his children (fig. 25). The kingdoms of Rajasthan, notably the princes in their exotic regalia and imposing palaces spectacularly situated on hilltops or lakes-sides, captured his romantic vision. Carpenter often recorded the relaxed aspects of the princes’ lifestyle, sometimes with their children, while still conveying the nobility, grandeur, and above all their individual character. He thus provides glimpses of their family lives and, since he himself is known to have worn Indian dress he would have been warmly welcomed into their homes. The year 1852 saw Carpenter back in Indore for the installation of the young prince, Tukoji Rao Holkar, when he painted the Gateway of the Palace. In 1853, he visited both Delhi, where he painted the ‘Jami Masjid from the balcony of a house’, and Simla, painting ‘The Wood Bazaar’. Then the following year he was in Amritsar, where he painted the Golden Temple, both the exterior and the interior. Source: IILWA