Mr Adams’ Album, a large album of watercolours depicting people, ceremonies, occupations, genre scenes, architecture, and flora and fauna, India, Bengal, and Burma, circa 1828-40

Mr Adams, possibly George Adams of the Bengal Civil Service, c.1828-35

Miss Julia Marriott, mid-19^th century

Room for Wonder, Indian Painting during the British Period, 1760-1880, The American Federation for the Arts, New York, 1978

On loan at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1983

S.C. Welch, Room for Wonder, Indian Painting during the British Period, 1760-1880, no.19, p.60-66

This large album contains 417 watercolours presenting an enormous diversity of charming, exotic, striking, idiosyncratic and sometimes bizarre images illustrating a dizzying variety of subjects relating to life, people, architecture and the natural world in Bengal and Burma in the second quarter of the 19th century.

The subjects depicted include dignitaries, princes and kings (living and dead), historical characters, tradesmen, occupations, domestic scenes, farmers, rural life, ceremonies, processions, mendicants, holy men, acrobats, performers, wrestlers, court scenes, genre scenes, domestic scenes, school scenes, religion (Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist), mythology (South Asian and European), architecture, boats, carriages, palanquins, animals, reptiles, birds, plants, fruit, flowers, trees and more. The date of the watermarks on the paper is 1826 and 1827, so the illustrations cannot have been begun before 1827, and allowing for the time it took for the paper to be bound into an album and shipped to India (either already in the possession of the eventual patron or as a commodity for sale in India) it is likely that the illustrations were not begun until at least 1828 or later.

The largest number of illustrations that indicate a geographic origin relate to Bengal and Burma and are associated with most categories of subject matter throughout the album, including types of people, occupations, locations, objects and flora and fauna, strongly suggesting that the patron and artist were based in these regions. As well as the terms 'Bengalee' and 'Burmese' applied to a wide variety of subjects, they include individuals and local officials ("Kalla Rajah of Calcutta", "Jemadar of the Permit of Calcutta") and specific locations such as Calcutta, Fort William, the Sundarbans, Chittagong, Arakan and Rangoon. There are also many illustrations of Europeans and of people and animals from distant parts of India and beyond, such as "Madras Harlequins", "Cashmere Merchant", "A Native of Surat", "An Arab Trader", "A Native of Bagdad", and "A Native of Constantinople". Subjects such as these can be accounted for by the presence in Calcutta of visitors, merchants and migrants plying their trades or seeking opportunities in the teeming and bustling city, which by 1831 had a diverse local, regional and international population numbering some 187,000 (Britannica 1910, vol.4, p.982; Marshall 2000). The inclusion of certain illustrations such as "Hercules and the Hydra" (no.193), or "Sons of the Sultan of Bagdad" (no.195) suggest that at least some of the subjects were taken (perhaps loosely) from prints or books circulating among the expatriates in Bengal at the time.

Two illustrations give an indication of the artist himself. No.12 is listed as "A Painter", and no.181 as "A Painter taking a Sketch of a Lady". It is tempting to regard these illustrations as self-portraits by the artist of this album himself, and such an approach would not be unique in Indian painting of the period. The Vellore artist Yellapah, also painting in the 1820s and 1830s, was in the habit of inserting portraits of himself and his wife into albums made for others (see Harris 2019, pp.118-9). Nowhere in the album does it state specifically for whom it was made, but a clue is found in two entries that mention a "Mr Adams". No.67 is "Mr Adams' Bungalow at Kyauk Phyoo" and no.76 is "Mr Adams' Daughter in different Attire". From these we know that Mr Adams had a child and that he spent some time on the coast of Burma. The modern spelling of Kyauk Phyoo is Kyaukpyu, a town located on the northern tip of a peninsular mid-way down the coast of Burma on the Bay of Bengal. This region was known as the Arakan coast and the album illustrates several species of birds and plants specific to Arakan ("Sprig of a Wildflower Tree in Arracan", "The Arracan Wood Pecker", "A Large Centipede of Arracan").

It was suggested by Mildred Archer that the Mr Adams mentioned here was George Adams (Welch 1978, p.62, fn). Further research in the India Office Records reveals that George Adams arrived in Calcutta in 1826 as a Writer in the East India Company, that by 1832 he had been posted to Dacca (Dhaka) and that in 1840 he was home in England on leave (East-India Registers, 1829-40). A further element that may confirm George Adams as the patron is the picture of his daughter. According to the India Office Records, George Adams and his wife had a baby daughter in 1837, born at Midnapore near Calcutta. If this is the child pictured in the illustration, then it must have been painted around 1840 when the child would have been three, perhaps just before George Adams (and presumably his wife and daughter) returned to the England on leave. This scenario would mean either that the illustrations in the album were not begun until later in the 1830s or that they took several years to complete. Both are plausible scenarios, indeed Cary Welch suggested the latter in his entry for this item in the 1978 exhibition catalogue Room for Wonder (p.60).

An inscription on the inside front cover in a 19th century English hand reads "Miss Julia Marriott", providing a clue to the subsequent provenance. The India Office Registers record two Misses Julia Marriott in western India at this time. One was married to a Mr George Clermont, a Writer in the East India Company, at Calcutta in 1835. The other, was married to a Mr T. Wilson at Madras in 1842. One of these Julia Marriotts probably owned the album, although it is not known how it came into their possession. It may be that one of them was a relation or acquaintance of Mr Adams, or that Mr Adams, having commissioned the illustrations, never paid for the album or somehow never received it, and that Miss Julia Marriott purchased it as a completed album. The decorated frontispiece in the album has been prepared and laid out ready to be inscribed, but the name of the patron has been left blank, which supports the latter theory.