A groom with a horse and carriage - 1845
Calcutta, India
Artist: Shaykh Muhammad Amir of Karraya
Opaque watercolour on paper

The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings. This is one of two pictures from a set made for a Calcutta resident, showing his house, servants, and pets. The distinguished Company artist Shaikh Muhammad Amir painted them. He worked in the Karraya suburb of Calcutta. From about the 1780s, British residents began to move out of the city centre to the pleasant new suburbs of Chowringhee and Garden Reach. It was here that local artists found plenty of work. Shaikh Muhammad Amir specialised in paintings of the houses and domestic staff of British suburbanites.

Copyright: © V&A Images