IN AN INDIAN GARDEN: The Carlton Rochell Collection of Company School Paintings
IN AN INDIAN GARDEN: The Carlton Rochell Collection of Company School Paintings
A Serow (Capricornis Sumatraenis), Company School, Calcutta, circa 1780-1810
Auction Closed
October 27, 10:37 AM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
pen and ink, watercolour on paper, fragmentary, with restoration to horns and lower hooves
Image: 45 by 52cm. (17 ¾ by 20 ½ in.); leaf: 67.5 by 79.2cm. (26 ⅝ by 31 ⅛ in.)
Niall Hobhouse, London
Christie’s, London, West~East - The Niall Hobhouse Collection, 22 May 2008, lot 13
Simon Ray, London
Christie’s, London, West~East - The Niall Hobhouse Collection, 22 May 2008, lot 13
Simon Ray, London
A serow is a goat-like animal, comparable to an antelope, belonging to the genus Capricornis. Until recently, it was also classified under the genus Naemorhedus which now only contains the goral, a smaller relative of the serow. Serows are agile animals found on forested slopes in the Eastern Himalayas in India, Bangladesh, China and in parts of Southeast Asia. They are now considered an endangered species.
This fine painting is of a young, male serow. It is depicted with light greyish brown fur, a distinctive open gland before the eyes, long, pointed ears, a bushy tail and a reddish tinge to its underparts. The illustration has an irregular outline with the slightly curved horns and the front and back left hooves added at a later stage.
It is possible that the present work was painted by Shaykh Zayn al-Din, an artist from Patna who worked for Lady Impey in Calcutta from 1777 to 1783. The closest comparable to the present painting is an illustration of a female Indian sambar deer (Cervus Unicolor) in a private collection. It was exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1985 where it was attributed to the Impey artist, Shaykh Zayn al-Din, by Stuart Cary Welch (Welch 1985, no.281b, pp.422-4). Andrew Topsfield agrees with this artist attribution for the graceful sambar depicted with a timid expression and a sleek coat and suggests a date of circa 1779-80 (Topsfield 2019, p.50, cat.no.12). The sambar illustration, like the serow, has been trimmed and may have lost the usual inscription associated with works from the Impey series. Shaykh Zayn al-Din was known for his impressive mammal studies, of which only a few examples are known, including the Shawl Goat from Bhutan dated to circa 1779 in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IS.51-1963); a Cheetah dated to circa 1780 in the Stuart Cary Welch collection and Lady Impey’s Pangolin from 1779 in the British Library (Dalrymple 2019, pp.51-52, cat.no.13, 14). A further example is an illustration of a Malabar Giant Squirrel, lot 13 in the present sale.
The style of the serow is also comparable to the natural history illustrations produced for Marquess Wellesley who was Governor General of Bengal from 1794 to 1804. Wellesley had one of the largest collections of bird and animal illustrations in Calcutta. He also founded an ‘Institute for Promoting the Natural History of India’ and set up a menagerie and an aviary in Barrackpore near Calcutta, with Dr Francis Buchanan appointed as its first Superintendent. Buchanan kept scientific records of all the birds and animals and employed a group of Indian artists for the drawings. Illustrations from the Wellesley and Buchanan Collections are now in the British Library. For comparable illustrations of animals from the Barrackpore Menagerie including gerbils, macaques, a Malabar squirrel and a hog deer, see Archer 1962, plates 9, 10, 18, 19.
This fine painting is of a young, male serow. It is depicted with light greyish brown fur, a distinctive open gland before the eyes, long, pointed ears, a bushy tail and a reddish tinge to its underparts. The illustration has an irregular outline with the slightly curved horns and the front and back left hooves added at a later stage.
It is possible that the present work was painted by Shaykh Zayn al-Din, an artist from Patna who worked for Lady Impey in Calcutta from 1777 to 1783. The closest comparable to the present painting is an illustration of a female Indian sambar deer (Cervus Unicolor) in a private collection. It was exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1985 where it was attributed to the Impey artist, Shaykh Zayn al-Din, by Stuart Cary Welch (Welch 1985, no.281b, pp.422-4). Andrew Topsfield agrees with this artist attribution for the graceful sambar depicted with a timid expression and a sleek coat and suggests a date of circa 1779-80 (Topsfield 2019, p.50, cat.no.12). The sambar illustration, like the serow, has been trimmed and may have lost the usual inscription associated with works from the Impey series. Shaykh Zayn al-Din was known for his impressive mammal studies, of which only a few examples are known, including the Shawl Goat from Bhutan dated to circa 1779 in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IS.51-1963); a Cheetah dated to circa 1780 in the Stuart Cary Welch collection and Lady Impey’s Pangolin from 1779 in the British Library (Dalrymple 2019, pp.51-52, cat.no.13, 14). A further example is an illustration of a Malabar Giant Squirrel, lot 13 in the present sale.
The style of the serow is also comparable to the natural history illustrations produced for Marquess Wellesley who was Governor General of Bengal from 1794 to 1804. Wellesley had one of the largest collections of bird and animal illustrations in Calcutta. He also founded an ‘Institute for Promoting the Natural History of India’ and set up a menagerie and an aviary in Barrackpore near Calcutta, with Dr Francis Buchanan appointed as its first Superintendent. Buchanan kept scientific records of all the birds and animals and employed a group of Indian artists for the drawings. Illustrations from the Wellesley and Buchanan Collections are now in the British Library. For comparable illustrations of animals from the Barrackpore Menagerie including gerbils, macaques, a Malabar squirrel and a hog deer, see Archer 1962, plates 9, 10, 18, 19.